The Voices of Women; Time to Unite

My dear blogging friend, Keiko Zoll, has issued a call to action for all of the women out there, and all of the men who support them.

It doesn't matter if you are Pro Life, Pro Choice, Pro Cheesehead... whatever. This crosses all boundaries and it will affect people of every walk of life.

I confess, this mainly applies to the women who are in the United States. I would (obviously) have very little pull with lawmakers in the US. However, I do have family and good friends in the USA, who would certainly be affected by the asinine bills and papers that are currently being presented by some officials. I was appalled to read of these on Keiko's blog. But dear Lord, it made me sit up, take notice... and shake my head in utter disbelief.

Imagine, if you will, being subjected to Iowa's Personhood Law (HF 153). Like me, you're infertile. You go through years of grief, finally turning to IVF. And YAY! In that IVF cycle, you have managed to fertilize all eight of your eggs! Even better, three made great blasts and were transferred. But shucks, the others aren't of good enough quality to save for future use and wouldn't survive a freeze/thaw according to your doctor. Guess what? YOU cannot make the decision to dispose of them, nor can your doctor. It would be illegal to dispose of them. C'est la vie! Because according to this one, it would be labelled murder to get rid of them. Stupidly enough, this one was authored by a female. God knows where her head was when she concocted this one. Logically, it doesn't make sense. Good Lord, has she not got a brain in her head at all? And this one PASSED an Iowa House subcomittee! Colour me confused. How the heck does that happen?? As Keiko said, "Do you live in Iowa? Does this piss you off? Contact your representative and tell them why it matters to YOU, their constituents. You can search for your Iowa legislators here online for their full contact info."

It's important to speak up about these sorts of things. Why? Because it works. Let me reiterate some of Keiko's post:

South Dakota, in House Bill 1171 (introduced by Rep. Phil Jensen), sought to redefine justifiable homicide:

Homicide is justifiable if committed by any person while resisting any attempt to murder such person, or to harm the unborn child of such person in a manner and to a degree likely to result in the death of the unborn child, or to commit any felony upon him or her, or upon or in any dwelling house in which such person is. (Source.)

As Keiko says, "In a nutshell, it would create legal precedent for someone to kill abortion clinic workers. Let's broaden this a bit: remember those blasties I mentioned a few paragraphs up? Let's say those low-grade blasties are discarded. According to HB 1171, it would be justifiable homicide to take out the offending embryologist who discarded them. Thankfully, the public outcry, both from South Dakotans and the blogosphere, was large enough that the language was changed and ultimately, South Dakota realized that maybe this whole thing didn't need to be brought to the table at all."

*blink blink*

So had this gone through, and were I a resident of South Dakota when we did our IVF, some nutcase could have taken out the embryologist that created MY LITTLE GIRL and it would be "justifiable homicide"?? Hell no! This is insane! Again, logical reasoning seems to escape them.

And this time, you know what some yahoo is seeking to do? CUT FUNDING TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD. New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, is behind this one. Last I looked, he didn't have a uterus, but damn, he's gonna try to tell women how and where to get their reproductive care? Um... no?! How about NO!!! *mutters* Doofus...

As we all know, Planned Parenthood is much more than just abortions. They provide access to birth control, pap smears, tests for sexually transmitted diseases and testing for many women who simply don't have access to health care, for whatever reason. By taking away the ability of Planned Parenthood to do these things, they are directly contributing to the increased risk of infertility for all of Planned Parenthood's clients. Those clients will NOT be able to access the reproductive care that they need. Again, per Keiko's words, "Don't know how your Representative voted? You can check here online to see whether or not they voted to defund Planned Parenthood. Then take the time to thank those that who supported PP or speak your mind to those who did vote to defund PP." And if you would like to sign the petition that Planned Parenthood has on their website to protest these cuts, check it out. I wish I could add my voice; alas, as a Canadian I cannot.

But more than either of these, this next one gets me riled. The inanity of this one is unparalleled. It just takes the cake. According to Georgia Rep, Bobby Franklin, (who is more knowledgeable than the Supreme Court in this case, apparently), "as we all know, life begins at conception" and as such, any termination -- for any reason/circumstance -- of that life would need to be reported. This dimwit is pushing for the following legislation:

"...any time a miscarriage occurs, whether in a hospital or without medical assistance, it must be reported and a fetal death certificate issued. If the cause of death is unknown, it must be investigated... Hospitals are required to keep records of anyone who has a spontaneous abortion and report it." (Source.)

A FETAL DEATH CERTIFICATE?? F*ck me people. That's impossible. Think about it. What about the typical three miscarriages/chemical pregnancies that even non-IF women have (and don't realize it) before they carry a pregnancy to term? Cause under this law, my two chemical pregnancies would be reported and hey, I'd be a baby killer, cause you know, I have 'fetal death certificates' to show for it. Or what about the woman who learns that she has cancer and must terminate the pregnancy to receive treatment? Or the woman who learns that she is carry a fetus with life-threatening characteristics (e.g., ancephaly) and the fetus cannot survive outside the womb? Must that woman carry the pregnancy to term? And to what end... only to watch her baby die just after birth? And then she'd be given a death certificate anyway, to boot? Dear Lord. This is crazy. It isn't logical. It makes no sense.

"Just a minute Mr. Franklin, I have a RL friend who just this morning learned about this month's chemical pregnancy at 15 dpo; shall I issue her a fetal death certificate now? And maybe have her prosecuted as well for your pleasure?"

Get a grip buddy. Or maybe you won't have to. Maybe the outcry from infertility bloggers will be enough.

Go read Keiko's entire post. Blog about it. Tweet about it. Write about it on Facebook. Get it out there. Because we all need to keep abreast of the laws that govern reproduction in America (and elsewhere), in order to protect our own rights. The nation of infertiles won't stand for this and honestly, it's time that people took notice.