Quite a while ago, I had acquaintances who scoffed at the idea that Roe v. Wade wasn’t safe from a right-wing assault. I told them then that the ruling didn’t have to be overturned to be rendered weak, that there lots of ways existed to completely undermine the ruling. And now that’s coming to pass, what with women iincreasing loss of rights to their own bodies and the fetus increasingly gaining more importance than fully existing, fully alive women. Fortunately, many women aren’t taking it laying down. And let’s not kid ourselves anymore, OK? The pro-life culture is fully integrated into the Bush administration; it’s part of the government infrastructure and they’ve lost all hubris in the matter. All we need to lose our reproductive rights is another Bush administration and the retirement of a Supreme Court judge. And don’t think it’ll stop at losing our abortion rights — there’s plenty of Santorum types out there who would dearly love to legislate away birth control rights as well. Sure wish I still had the news link to a Catholic official who said that the Catholic stance on reproduction is what’s best for society as a whole, but perhaps it’s enough that you consider what a return to Comstockery would be like because we’re getting everyday to it.
I’m not so much mad about this as frustrated that we continue to live under such extreme push and pulls. I know democracy is suppose to be rough and tumble, but the polarized extremes — and their fight for an all-out win — wear me out.
Other potent potables:
Ten years later. I haven’t forgotten the pain of the past, but I’m all to ready to see how playwrights handle the struggle for same-sex marriage. I’d love to see someone do “the Mitt Romney Story” ala an Angels in America. Or ala Blazing Saddles. Either would work for me.
I credit Hanne Blank for creating all this fuss over Chit Lit and faithful readers know I don’t like the fiction simply because I don’t identify with it. But if I were to write an age-appropriate version of a novel, it’d be called “Fuck Buddies and Sensible Shoes.” Just so ya know.
And until some agents goes, “oh! oh!” over that book idea, I’ll console myself with this bright mention. Yes, it’s just a mention for me but I always wanted to appear somewhere in the Advocate family of alt-weeklies. Well, somewhere other than the perv personals in the back pages…
Tomorrow: a brief but poignant anniversary to mark. Come back then, please.
