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It’s infuriating that in the year 2022, people have the unmitigated gall to tell women what to do with our bodies. What’s even more infuriating is the hypocrisy and contradiction that drive these patriarchal and archaic ass attempts to end Roe v Wade.
At the top of the week, Politico reported on leaked documents from the Supreme Court signaling that it was moving towards reversing the landmark ruling, Roe v. Wade.
Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, making it legal for women to terminate their pregnancy during the first trimester. Ever since then, there have been national attacks and successful attempts to restrict and bar women’s rights in regards to their reproductive health.
Pro-life supporters have based their criticism and repeal of Roe v. Wade in wanting to preserve the sanctity of life but when it comes to advocacy, that’s where the buck stops. If you ask me, these people aren’t all concerned with folx quality of life. They’re sitting so high up on their horses that clouds of privilege, judgment and delusion are blocking their view of reality and humanity.
Now, if the true goal for ending Roe v Wade is to preserve the “sanctity” of life then why is it that most of these states that have anti-abortion laws are ones that also support capital punishment? Isn’t a life a life?
Death penalty states want to play God
In response to the leaked Supreme Court opinions, Georgia State Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene – one politician many of us love to despise – said, “Life starts at conception. Our constitution never did and never will give the right to murder another human being in the womb.”
If I had the chance to sit down with Marjorie – which would be a frigidly cold day in Hell – I’d ask her about her thoughts on murder outside of the womb. Her state of Georgia has upheld the death penalty for 300 years, with thousands of executions on record. Did those people not deserve protection of the sanctity of life, too?
Oklahoma is also another contradiction culprit, ranking number one in executions per capita. The state has “legally” executed 199 people since 1915–not including the over 300 illegally executed in the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
Despite having a gruesome state-sanctioned murder rate, Oklahoma recently passed a bill mirroring Texas’ strict abortion policies.
In addition to Georgia and Oklahoma, 13 other death penalty states have trigger laws in place and waiting to be dropped the minute the Supreme Court pulls Roe v. Wade.
So how can these lawmakers say they’re legally entitled to decide the fate of a life but tell women they can’t make that same decision? As anti-BLM people like to say, don’t “all lives matter”?
Ending Roe v Wade won’t stop abortions
What will we see if Roe v. Wade is overturned? Certainly, an increase in unsafe procedures.
According to Planned Parenthood, by 1965, illegal abortions made up one-sixth of all pregnancy-related deaths in the United States. The site also states, “Overturning Roe v. Wade could put safe, legal abortion out of reach for one-third of people ages 15 to 49 who may need it.”
As we’ve seen in the past, women aren’t going to be backed into a corner when it comes to making decisions about their health if Roe v Wade is rescinded–they’re going to find another way. But, let’s just say they do decide to carry out the pregnancy and give the child up for adoption.
Why aren’t conservatives concerned about foster children?
Currently, there are over 400,000 kids in foster care across the United States. Children’s Rights reports that in 2019, more than 20,000 young people aged out of foster care without permanent families. Research has shown that those who leave care without being linked to forever families have a higher likelihood than youth in the general population to experience homelessness, unemployment, and incarceration as adults. What about their quality of life?
Finally, what kind of quality of life will there be for a mother who decides to keep their child and is forced to raise them in poverty; a mother who’s traumatized from being sexually assaulted by the child’s father; or a family who’s lost a loved one due to undiscovered, late-term pregnancy complications?
Anyone that has a heart doesn’t want to see a life terminated under any circumstances. But circumstances are different for different people and it’s not our place to judge or regulate what that person does with their body through policy or religion. Bottom line, you can be pro-life and pro-rights at the same time–it’s called pro-choice.
This is the best article i have read regarding Roe vs Wade. Thank you Tanesha Peeples for writing this. I’m overwhelmed by sadness and your article gives me hope.
So silly.
The rational is that abortion is killing innocents and executions are killing guilty murderers. Hardly hypocrisy. Obvious.
Executions is not playing God, if you know the biblical narrative Obvious.
Yes you are so silly. Your argument is that it is ok for a person to decide another person’s right to live based on their opinions on whatever that person has done wrong. But a person is not ok to decide what they can do with a potential life in their own body. As far a the Bible goes I believe it clearly states vengeance is mine say the lord. Any Society that purports to be pro life and pro death penalty are in contradiction with not only their own morals and ethics but the Christian beliefs as a whole. Lastly, if you believe abortion is wrong then feel free to not have one, but stop hiding behind religion as an excuse to control women’s bodies. By your line of thought vasectomies should be banned, funny how that is never a topic bigoted pro lifers and politicians debate. So silly.
What an incredibly goofy statement. This entire article is almost entirely nonsensical, using potential bad life quality to play God and say that it’s better a life is ended before it endures what I deem is too much for it.
Women’s rights to bodily autonomy is HAVING SEX, not killing babies. If you’d like to make an argument about sexual assault, we can have that, but I’d prefer to talk about the other 99.9% of abortions that have nothing to do with rape or incest.
All informed people know that Roe Vs Wade will not end abortions. It would, simply, return the power to the states, as the draft decision said was, always, the case.
Dudleysharp why does anyone other than the woman who’s body it is need to weigh in on what that woman can and can’t do with her own body? There is no reason for it. If the roles were reversed and women were trying to control what you did with your genitalia you’d be very upset and would fight for your right to control your own body. Period. Stop hiding behind religious beliefs or political reasons for what is clearly yet another example of male fragility and control issues. Sorry not sorry. That same mindset is what made civil rights so difficult, white men needing to feel powerful as they are faced with the truth about how their actions throughout history have been mostly about controlling other people to their own financial and social gains.
EXACTLY. And nobody had any right to take the slaves away from the south! The plantation farmers didn’t see them as people, and the union had no right imposing their religious values on THEIR lives.
Exactly. I live in Texas. I’m so disgusted that it’s okay to kill someone that has lived and formed relationships and attachments but made mistakes in life yet NOT OKAY to end the life of someone that is a blank slate simply because I decide and YOU DON’T. I feel like if you take it all down to it’s most basic, it’s all about control.
So you feel that it’s very bad to kill someone that has violated the rights of others or an egregious extent and is a danger to society, but you feel that it’s completely justified to kill a life that literally hasn’t had a chance to do anything wrong, and is the most pure and innocent something can be.
Are you okay?