Respect Our Lives

[Trigger warning for disrespect of women's autonomy, violence, and a description of a perineum tear.]

In the context of the Ohio "Heartbeat" Bill, the attack on Planned Parenthood funding, the proposed legislation in South Dakota which would legalize the murder of abortion providers, and everything else Republicans/anti-choicers are doing across the country to turn Roe into a hollow statute, this quote from possible '12 Republican candidate Mike Huckabee is particularly interesting:

"For me this is an issue that - as I've said before - it transcends all of the political issues," Huckabee said at a fundraiser in Tennessee for the Center for Bioethical Reform, an anti-abortion group.

"I've often said I would gladly lose an election before I would ever yield on the issue of the sanctity of human life," Huckabee added.

Insert contemptuous chortling at the idea that a Republican could lose an election for being too anti-choice.

Of course, Huckabee didn't say anything about being anti-choice. What he said was that he would never "yield on the issue of the sanctity of human life." By which he means the potential life of fetuses. Which everyone in the media takes as read. And then stops there. And never makes the logical observation about the gaping hole in his reasoning, never asks the logical follow-up questions.

"But, Rev. Huckabee, you do appear to be willing to compromise the sanctity of the lives of pregnant women. Do you not believe that their lives are sacred? Do you not believe their free will is sacred? Do you not believe their right to free of violence done to their bodies is sacred?"

As I've said before (and will almost certainly have occasion to say many times again, until everyone is yawning about what a goddamn broken record I am), the anti-choice position is inherently violent, no matter how politely it is stated. If anyone else suggested that I should be forced to submit my body against my will to nine months of potential discomfort and pain, followed by an act that might include the skin and muscle between my vagina and anus being torn open, I don't think we'd mince words about whether they were using violent rhetoric. But because we can couch it in the bullshit terminology of "a pro-life position," that's supposed to be evidence of civility.

That's supposed to evidence of an unyielding belief in the sanctity of human life.

LULZ.

I am a human. That does not in any way feel like a respect for the sanctity of my life, or the quality of my life, or the agency over my life to which I am meant to have a public (and, according to Huckabee's own religion, divine) right.

No one can argue, with any honesty or credibility, that they give a fuck about the sanctity of life if they would force a woman to carry to term an unwanted or unviable pregnancy against her will. That is the opposite of a respect for life, if the definition of "life" is to have any meaning at all.

And I really wish the media would start pointing that out.