Mermaid Musings

Abortion Provider Appreciation Day March 10, 2008

better late than never…

Yesterday was National Abortion Provider Appreciation Day, honoring the seven doctors who were murdered by (a little irony here) ‘pro-life’ extremists.

Kudos to abortion providers!! Thank you for your work and dedication to women’s reproductive freedom.

I’m starting to feel like a broken record, but I am so SICK of anti-abortion folks who claim that their concern is for LIFE. Hello, don’t doctors have a right to life? I think the extremists who would commit murder in the name of protecting life really illustrate the hollowness of the so-called pro-life stance: it’s not really about life, it’s not really about protecting the fetus. It is really about sex and female sexuality and controlling female bodies.

Just yesterday one of the wack-jobs on the forums called abortion an “abomination to humanity.” Aside from not knowing exactly what it means to be an abomination to humanity, I can really think of a lot more abominable things than abortion. Particularly if you look even cursorily at any of the Bush Administration’s policies…

I think what I don’t understand is the passion behind the protection of the fetus. I mean, many mothers (who want to have a baby) to be don’t even really feel a connection to the life they are carrying until late in pregnancy. How do these anti-abortion fanatics feels so connected to the preciousness of a fetus that they know nothing about? Nothing about the parentage, nothing about the circumstances of conception, nothing about the life conditions of the mother-who-doesn’t-want-to-be, yet they would feel moved to shoot the man about to perform an abortion just to preserve the potential of this unproven life. I just don’t get it.

Unless their motivation is deeper than that. Because I do believe that women and female sexuality are so villified by our society and powerful women are so threatening to the patriarchy that one could be moved to kill in order to protect the status quo. This I can believe. I can believe that abortion, to these extremists, represents women able to have sex with whomever, whenever they feel like it and safe, legal abortion means that women can have sex without fearing losing their lives. And women who are free to have sex, to enjoy sex fully, without reservation, are women who can be in touch with their own power and who may decide to challenge the tenets of patriarchy which tell them they are less than human and less worthy than men.

So, thank you, thank you, thank you to all the folks who provide safe legal abortions: the clinics, the doctors, the funds, the hotlines and services that provide women with the services, the information, the resources and the access they need to lead the lives they choose.