Frustration

[tymps]

Recently, a bunch of terrible, ignorant, short-sighted, and just plain wrong bills have passed in my state of North Dakota regarding abortion. It's a complete and total embarrassment to the state. They're unconstitutional, they're narrow in their scope (but yet have massive effects), they infringe on people's rights, and they're ultimately a huge waste of time and money. I love North Dakota, but I'm rather ashamed of our legislators right now.

I guess it's surprising that our laws allowed for relatively easy abortions at all considering how conservative this area tends to be. Still, it's frustrating seeing that taken away. Can't these lawmakers see that there are more important ways that they could be spending this money? They recently turned down a proposal or bill to give free milk to children in our state. Wouldn't that benefit more people than, you know, basically taking away abortions? 

These anti-abortion bills will make it harder for doctors to want to work in North Dakota. These bills make it difficult for people to undergo in vitro fertilization. These bills put women's lives in danger in cases like ectopic pregnancies. These bills nearly outlaw abortions altogether, forcing women to carry to term, and that includes women who were victims of rape, which is just abhorrent. Regardless of the circumstances, though, women should be allowed to make their own decisions about their own health and lives.

It's just so frustrating.

Yesterday I attended a rally/protest downtown and there were several people (doctors, a former judge, etc.) who spoke to the crowds. It was exciting and I was glad to have been there. It was neat hearing all of the speakers, and it was neat seeing all of the support from around town. There were other rallies in different cities around the state yesterday as well, and the pictures from those events looked as powerful as ours was. At the same time, though...I just worry that it won't be enough to make a difference.

Regardless, since these bills are so unconstitutional and badly written, there'll likely be a lengthy, expensive legal process following this. I just can't believe that our lawmakers are so short-sighted that they don't see this. I can't believe that they wouldn't want to allocate resources and time better than this. I can't believe that they wouldn't want to make positive changes for the people in our state who are already living on the earth. I can't believe that they're allowing one very narrow, extreme point of view to dictate the laws for everyone.

Comments

[mellowness]

You know, things like these bills that have recently passed make it very easy for me to believe that most pro-lifers are consciously and openly misogynistic. I mean, the bill about abortion being banned after the fetus has a heartbeat sounds so contrived and absurd that it really just sounds like an excuse to guilt-trip women (and fertile trans* men, although I'm sure most pro-lifers see trans* men as women, anyway)into ceding their bodily autonomy to the state by feeding them the purely cultural notion that life = beating heart (even though the reality is more complex than that). It's just like the notion that, when the fetus has a discernible face, the fetus is somehow a sentient being.

[tymps]

I agree. It's an obvious guilt-trip tactic. It's so arbitrary and they don't even bother to say what it means beyond their belief that a heartbeat means that it's life and therefore something worth 'saving' (and sometimes worth saving over a grown woman's life, in their eyes).

It's all just so frustrating. It feels like we're taking so many steps back and regressing. :/