Hey hey, everybody.
Sorry I’ve been a ghost lately. Things have taken a turn for the busy, and I don’t really have lots of computer time for a bit.
Oh, I’ve had things I’ve wanted to comment on. From the usual right-wing stupidity, to what-the-fuck stories regarding economics, or various statistical illiteracies.
But I couldn’t not say something about George Tiller.
And, right now, I don’t have full-throated outrage to share. I’m not even really shocked.
I’m just sad.
That will change, I know, because there’s work to be done.
But I’m sad that this bullshit still goes on. That a group of fucking busybodies have decided that people that they’ve never met making decisions about potential people they’ll never meet is the worst sin ever in the history of the universe. And they wave their bloody fetus pictures, and shout that “abortion is murder,” and feel smug and righteous because, basically, they’ve never (by and large) had to make any hard decisions in that arena themselves.
Dr. Tiller was one of three late-term abortion providers–not in Wichita, not in the state of Kansas, but in the fucking United States of America. Roughly speaking, that means there was one late-term abortion provider for every 50 million women (of all ages) in the US.
Listen, anti-abortion people. Late-term abortions aren’t frivolous things. Nobody says to themselves, “You know, I’ve been meaning to get an abortion, but then it was football season, and things picked up with my social life, and I just couldn’t get around to it. I think today I’ll go get my nails done, get that late-term abortion, then go shopping for a new swimsuit.”
Okay? It’s not a trivial consideration. It’s a serious medical procedure, and entails no small risk to the woman who has to undergo it. But, sometimes, it’s the least worst option people face. That you can’t see that–that you can’t understand that these are human beings making painful and unpleasant choices about their own lives–indicates that you have no empathy (to use a lately much-maligned word), and no understanding that women are, in fact, humans with decision-making agency. Killing doctors will not, ever, change those underlying conditions. What you are doing (apart from making spouses, friends, and relatives grieve unnecessarily) is making life far, far more difficult for people who already have enough difficulties to last a lifetime.
This needs more fleshing out, but I have to be off to my job now.
So I’m sad.
But that’ll pass. There’s more work to do.