Soapbox

Character Study

    I try not to make sweeping assumptions about people's motives, try not to presume that I can know from someone's words what their character and intentions are. It may be fair to judge their actions, but not their hearts. Just because a person says something racially insensitive, for instance, doesn't necessarily mean that they are a racist. Maybe it's been their misfortune to have been so long with racists in their family that they don't even realize the insensitivity of what they are saying.
    It's possible. I can't read minds, so I don't actually know how they feel inside.

    But I don't know how else to interpret the new Republican (do I even need to say that anymore?) anti-abortion bill pushed through the Ohio house except to assume they just hate people. I have tried and cannot come up with any other motivation except plain old-fashioned  mean.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/06/20/2185821/doctors-ohio-abortion-bill-disastrous/

    As I read about it, I can just see them hitching up their belts and nodding in grim, smug satisfaction: That'll teach those sluts! Because every word of this piece of legislative garbage shouts their belief that  every woman who has an abortion, for any reason, is a baby-killing slut.
    This is not pro-life, it's "Faux-life" in the truest sense. Doctors would be forced under penalty of law to give women incorrect medical information. Women will be required to pay for and look at an ultrasound of their fetuses heartbeat (trans-vaginally, if necessary)… as if they might not realize that it's a baby in there and they think they're getting a tonsillectomy!
    But mere humiliation, lies  and  burdensome expense are the basic foundation of every piece of anti-abortion (aka 'Jobs? What jobs!' ) legislation that is being proposed today. That's not what's new. In Ohio, now they're ready to kill you.

     Under this bill, a woman past 20 weeks pregnancy who suddenly needs an abortion for emergency health reasons CANNOT GET ONE for 48 hours. It doesn't matter if an entire  team of doctors swears her life is in danger unless the procedure is done immediately. The (mostly) men of the Ohio Faux Life coalition have decided that a woman has to wait 48 hours for an abortion no matter what. Because…  they do not care. I'm sorry, but it's not possible to care about people and to vote for such a horrible bill.

   Imagine a man being in a car accident, getting rushed to the hospital where the doctors say he needs an immediate splenectomy so he doesn't bleed to death and being told by the legislature, "Relax… in 48 hours, we'll let the doc fix you right up. For now just hang in there. We want to make sure you aren't making this decision in haste."
     It doesn't matter what your doctors say about the danger to your life, because We, the esteemed members of the Ohio Republican House of Representatives, we lawyers and real estate brokers and car salesmen, who have never met you and know nothing about your medical condition or what brought you to this terrible moment in your life… WE have decided that society would somehow be best served if you wait 48 hours before we allow you to have your 'emergency' procedure. And the potential consequences to you, including death- are entirely secondary to the triumph of our political ideology.
   I guess that's no surprise, given that this is the same political ideology that on a national level also wants to shut down Planned Parenthood and deny abortion for rape victims,  yet refuses to even debate a law that would guarantee a reasonably safe work environment to protect the health of  pregnant women! (You know, the ones with those solid gold, heart-beating fetuses!) 
No can do kids: too busy putting  "Right To Life" sticker on our Town Cars to care about your actual life!

    So I don't know what you could possibly say about a person who would write such a bill or vote for it to become the law of the land, other than "they hate you." They just fundamentally do not give a shit about humanity, and are willing to stand by enjoying fine aged whiskey and a good cigar with their lobbyist pals while you go into convulsions or bleed to death on the Emergency Room floor, if it gets them an A+ rating with the Right to Life Coalition. Bonus points if it pisses off a lot of feminazis and pointy-eared liberals!
    I have tried, but I can't think of any other motivation for such indifference.

     The bill as written is unconstitutional in multiple areas and will never become law. But it is far worse than unconstitutional: it is unconscionable. It is utterly lacking in compassion and humanity.

   Welcome to America. Please check your extra "X" chromosome at the door. Because when the rubber meets the road, they really don't care if you have a job, can afford medicine for your kids, are able to vote, or whether you and your family Live. Or. Die.
    We would all do well to remember that!