You'd Think Saying "I Told You So" Would Get Old

Dear American Women Moderates,
I don't know if you remember me, but I'm the one who said that your lukewarm opposition/nonplussment/indifference to a woman's right to choose would have repercussions. I tried really hard to convince you it wasn't about the scarlet-A abortion, but rather about you, as a human being, getting to decide your own medical destiny. You didn't quite see it that way. You only saw abortion which you though was icky. And that is totally your right. Lots of lefter-than-you women think it's icky. You're the Tipper Gores if you will, the "it should never ever happen, but if it does, we should acknowledge the tragedy and work to prevent it" people. And with such a contentious issue, many on the lefter-of-you were content to let you think it was icky while you didn't press to make it illegal. That way no one had to have an uncomfortable conversation.

But somewhere in the liberal elite bunker, someone who looks an awful lot like I do (this was a while ago, so fatter), was saying crazy paranoid doomsday stuff like: one of these days some idiot is going to try to limit access to contraception. "Don't be ridiculous!" You ALL said, "that would never happen. They're two entirely different things. No one could ever think that contraception should be up for debate!" Both you middle-of-the-road Tippers and you coastal hedonists.

I am so, so tired.

It was too difficult for all of you to separate your personal feelings and choices from what the letter and spirit of law should be. Because you, personally, wouldn't choose to have an abortion, you thought it was important to tell people that, to get that moral superiority bump. You didn't think it was hurting anyone because you still allowed that other women, the morally inferior ones, could choose to do it, but an upstanding citizen like you wouldn't. And you needed everyone to know that. Otherwise we could have mistaken you for one of those abortion-happy 10-stamps-and-the-eleventh-is-free people. I hope you feel really superior. I hope you are pleased that you took the high road and didn't stoop to saying something like, "medical decisions are private regardless of gender." You know, the way we do for Seventh Day Adventists. You didn't see it as a medical issue because you were so concerned about what people might think of you.

Welcome to the slippery slope. Now you have people in nearly normal states like Virginia proposing that before you get an abortion, you need an ultrasound. You know, the same way as when you go to the hospital to get a nail removed from your foot, you need a chest x-ray; the way you need a prostate exam before you can get a scrip for penicillin for your strep throat. And, I mean, only a crazy tin-foil hat person could have seen this coming. To say nothing of the resuscitation of a fifty-year old argument that The Pill is only utilized by women of loose morals (who, by the way, need fewer abortions).

So, I kind of want to know: how do you feel now? Are you able to continue feeling morally superior because your abject laziness has permitted this? Do you feel any sense of responsibility for prizing icky over equality? I kind of hope you don't.

I know, you weren't expecting that. But I am so beyond apoplectic about this that I've gone in the completely opposite direction. Ban everything! Allow any state that wants to turn a tax-paying, voting woman into a second class citizen because she has a uterus. Heck, propose that a woman can't even see a doctor without a male family member (father or husband) present. We women cannot possibly be expected to make those kinds of decisions on our own. We might choose incorrectly. Much like the mandatory ultrasound, having dad or devoted partner come to the doctor with me will make sure that someone understands what is about to happen to me, whether or not it's cancer treatment or drops for an eye infection. Those are heady issues that are way too difficult for me, with my uterus, to understand. It's the chief reason I'm so glad to have a husband.

I don't know how many years it will take before you revolt - I'm guessing somewhere around a Qadaffi-number of years, but perhaps you've had it too good until now and you need some serious oppression to make you rethink your priorities. You didn't realize that every time you personally denounced abortion that you were arming the enemies of all women with the weapon of: "polls have shown that most women disapprove of abortion, so no one cares if we outlaw it." And you laughed in the faces of the people who pointed that out.

I look forward to laughing at you.

Yours laughing maniacally from a pharmacy in Montreal,

Yelena