On Choice
Via the ever-brilliant Brittney:
“This morning the rabidly conservative State Senate voted Aye on SJR 127 - the resolution they hope will one day outlaw abortion in Tennessee. SJR 127 permits no exceptions for rape, incest or even to save the health or life of a woman. Today was the Senate's third reading of SJR 127, the resolution that would amend the State Constitution.
The vote: 24 Ayes and 9 Nayes.”
This isn’t forty years ago, this is today. This is the world we live in.
No, scratch that. This is the state I’m living in. A state which pushes the idea that not only are gay people unable to marry, but now that women aren’t able to take control of their own body. For any reason. At all.
Oh, that kid is going to kill you due to some rare disorder? Tough luck, see you at the funeral. Be sure to wear something baby blue or pink, would you?
I’m tired of the state I’m living in not waking up to the fact that this isn’t the place that the leaders grew up in. It has changed. Times have changed. Thoughts have changed.
Leaders? Or, should I say, “leaders” don’t understand that the youth who thrive in their state have grown up on a steady diet of MTV and pop culture and grunge. We’ve seen the status quo, we recognized it for what it was, we raged against the dying of the light.
We rocked the vote, we bought the t-shirt, we rejoiced in the fact that the world we live in finally seems to recognize the obvious truth staring them in the face.
Not so around here, of course.
Now that time has come again for us as a state to try and be progressive, to move beyond our old dated feelings and preconceptions and problems and look at this as adults. Adults who trust scientific knowledge and not an Intelligent Design. Adults who prove that they know more than their previous incumbants did. Adults who aren’t afraid to buck the system a little to make sure that the free people stay free.
This is a backpedaling of basic human rights. I’m appalled, seriously appalled that such a measure passed with such a majority.
Here’s the irony: Somewhere at some point one of these representatives will have rape or incest or disease strike a loved one and only an abortion will be the answer. And what will they do? What any other sane person would do, and what they did in the 50’s—they’ll smuggle out the woman in question to another state without such draconian laws or find a local clinic who will do it on the sweet ‘n discreet.
The choice between an abortion and your loved one isn’t a choice at all, is it?
This law in this day and age is saddening and it makes me want to leave the beautiful area I call home.
Thank you Tennessee legislature, for showing me what it is to live up to a bad reputation.
2 Comments:
First South Dakota, now Tennessee. I thought this was all decided by the Supreme Court 40 years ago. Are we trying to go back in time?
Sadly I'm not surprised. While I am conservative on a lot of issues. I have always support Choice for women. It is my hope though that because Tennesse's law is so contricting that the Supreme Court will have no choice but to strike it down. The same with South Dakota.
These laws are nothing less than the desire to strike down Roe vs. Wade. They are worded to challenge it. And to the previous comment, yes they want to take us back to the 50's which weren't all that great in my opinion.
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