There’s been a lot of laughing and snarking and WTF-ing throughout Left Blogistan about odd statements made by Alabama legislator Clyde Chambliss’ with respect to the Alabama abortion ban.
True, his prideful willful ignorance is profound when it comes to how human reproduction works. It takes a while for those chromosomes to come together? Seriously? “Until those chromosomes you were talking about combine—from male and female—that’s my understanding [of when life begins].” I assume that, in his own hamhanded way, he is saying he believes life begins at conception. That’s not surprising; he shares that belief with millions of other advocates of state-mandated pregnancy.
But the comments getting the most attention are the ones that, when examined, are the most chilling for the future freedom of girls and women of childbearing age.
Chambliss made what was thought by many on the Blue Team to be a cryptic statement: “anything that’s available today is still available up until that woman knows she’s pregnant.”
Guffaws ensued. Comedians and pundits had a field day.
A few folks pointed out that he may have been confused about implantation (some forced birthers believe that is when life begins), or thinking that somehow a woman can tell she is pregnant when the egg implants; or he could be thinking about how long she has to wait to take a pregnancy test.
Most of the jokes and outrage centered around the irrational idea that a woman might seek an abortion before knowing she was pregnant.
Lots of folks, including me, assumed he was referring to the continued availability of the “morning after” pill, which was mighty white of him under the circumstances.
Then it hit me. Like a ton of bricks.
He is probably referring to contraception.
Like all Republicons, who know they have to hide their true agenda in order to win elections, he’s not brave enough to come right out and say that’s what he means, but there is no other even partway reasonable explanation for his statement.
I realize it’s usually a fool’s errand to expect Rs to make sense, especially RWNJs, but this time I feel strongly that we all need to be alerted to the fact that my interpretation is a possibility. If I am right, it will inspire more activism on this issue than we have seen before, especially among the young people who have never lived in a country where contraception was illegal.
Again, when he says, “anything that’s available today is still available up until that woman knows she’s pregnant”, he almost certainly is referring to the non-barrier contraceptive methods that prevent fertilization and implantation.
Too many people on the Blue Team are not even aware that radical forced birthers think this way. The anti-abortion protesters openly wear their pins and wave their signs that say “Abortion is Murder”, but it is still sort of a secret that millions of them think in their heart of hearts that “Contraception is Murder”.
They believe anything that prevents a fertilized egg from implanting, attaching to the uterine wall, is actually causing an abortion. This includes the birth control pill, the morning after pill, hormonal contraceptive implants, and various IUDs in use by millions of women today.
True, the higher dose birth control pills of my youth mostly worked by suppressing ovulation. But if an egg was released and fertilized, the backup was that the pill changed body chemistry to make the uterus an inhospitable place for implantation. The new low-dose and progestin-only pills (the “mini-pill”) primarily work in the latter way, interfering with implantation by making the womb inhospitable.
Some researchers believe that more than 50% of all fertilized eggs fail to implant, or develop other problems later on in gestation that prevent the pregnancy from continuing. The forced birth fantasy that every fertilized egg grows into a full-term healthy baby if humans don’t interfere is just another by-product of their general biological ignorance and science denial. Eggs that fail to implant, or pregnancies that are lost later to miscarriage, used to be called “spontaneous abortions”. if you define it that way, Mother Nature is the greatest abortionist, deciding daily that millions of fertilized eggs will never draw a breath outside the womb.
Many years ago I accidentally stumbled onto a RW website that referred to birth control pills as “Kemical Killing”. Anything that causes the fertilized egg to be denied the environment and nourishment it needs to continue developing, is called abortion, and murder, by them.
So all those “jokes” about “maybe I should have an abortion every day just to make sure I’m not pregnant”? That is what some of them think you are doing by taking a daily birth control pill.
Saying that this and other “methods a woman can use before she knows she’s pregnant” are “still” available leaves an unspoken “for now” hanging in the air unaddressed.
And why isn’t all of this a First Amendment violation—creating legislation to impose their religious beliefs about when life begins onto other women (and their doctors) who do not share those same beliefs?
The prospect of questioning women who have spontaneous abortions to make sure they did nothing to cause it is a horrific idea: a heartless cruelty in the loss of a wanted pregnancy, a denial of bodily autonomy for the loss of an unwanted pregnancy, and a patriarchal invasion of privacy for every woman subjected to it.
It’s just a small step from here to policing women for what they eat and what sexual positions they prefer and how vigorously they exercise and other “protective” measures too close to the most draconian speculative fiction on this subject.
The Handmaid’s Tale is not an instruction manual.
So I am daring Chambliss and the Alabama legislature and their ilk to fess up! Tell the truth and shame the devil! Admit Roe v Wade is only the first stop on their agenda! Make them state plainly they are really after Griswold v Connecticut, but they are keepign quiet about it because they know a birth control ban would be even more unpopular than a total abortion ban (which is VERY unpopular).
They are trying to keep their real precedent-reversing goal under wraps.
Don’t let them.
Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
If you have a megaphone or a microphone or any kind of audience at all, even just among your friends and family, openly accuse Chambliss and the whole government-imposed pregnancy crowd of being anti birth control. Every chance you get.
Because a whole lot of them are.
Just think of how that would radicalize the vast majority of female voters, and the men who care about them.
Come to think of it, it might also radicalize men who don’t care about women very much at all, but would freak out for damn sure if their girlfriends couldn’t get contraception any more.
I assure you: Clyde Chambliss and the Alabama legislature and a good many of these other politicians who favor “heartbeat bills” and the like will not be satisfied with repealing Roe or even turning abortion care back to the individual states.
What they really want is to recriminalize birth control. Say it out loud.
Let’s see them try to deny it.