As many longtime Kossacks know, I was once (weakly) pro-life. But a series of events from 2011 to 2013 knocked the scales off my eyes and brought me back to where I believe where I have always been at heart—in favor of a woman’s right to choose.
Recent events out of Alabama gave me a lovely reminder of why I jumped back over the fence—and why it is apparent that we’re not dealing with a pro-life movement, but a forced-birth movement. This was mentioned in an open thread three days ago, but is outrageous enough to merit a full diary.
A 12-year-old girl was raped in her own home, and became pregnant as a result. She didn’t want to keep the pregnancy, but faced a problem. Alabama requires minors to get parental consent in order to have an abortion—unless a judge grants a waiver. So the girl sought and got a waiver from a juvenile judge.
However, the local DA objected, so she appealed to the Alabama Civil Court of Appeals. That panel sided with the girl as well. It should be noted that this court is entirely Republican.
Oh, how the wingnuts howled! Last week, Win Johnson, the former head of the state Administrative Office of the Courts under Roy Moore, teamed up with Montgomery crisis pregnancy center head Lorie Mullens to blast the ruling. Watch a clip here.
In one of the most degrading moments from a movement full of them, Johnson slammed the court for giving this girl the green light to “murder her own child in her womb.” For good measure, Mullens said that this girl risked becoming a “perpetrator of this newest violence” if she ended her pregnancy. She acknowledged that this girl has been through hell (she’s been removed from her home five times), but begged her, “Don’t rob yourself of your future.”
This has me eating nails. So a girl who is a victim of sexual assault risks being branded a “murderer” and “perpetrator” who could “rob herself of her future” if she has an abortion? These two moral paragons are victimizing this poor girl all over again. And that’s before we even consider that making this girl keep the pregnancy at her age puts her at risk for severe complications, and even death.
So protecting the sanctity of life not only requires keeping a brain-dead woman on life support, but also requires denying a 12-year-old rape victim to keep her pregnancy. Is there any doubt any more that these people really don’t give a damn about the sanctity of life?