News In Other Ass Backwards News
The U.S. Senate voted 65-34 (with 14 Dems—not Maria Cantwell or Patty Murray…or Joe Lieberman) joining 51 Republicans) to make it a federal crime to help an underage girl do an end-run around parental notification laws by going to another state to get an abortion.
Stupid.
Here’s the roll call.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t underage girls the ones that we should most want to get abortions if they get pregnant?
This law comes from the same place as all the War on Sex stuff. It’s living in denial about the fact that people—and unfortunately, teenage girls too—have sex and get pregnant. Certainly, we should do everything we can to prevent teenage girls from getting pregnant (because that’s a recipe for disaster), but once they get pregnant, there needs to be access to abortion.
This legislation basically says: Teenage girls shouldn’t get pregnant, but if they do, we’re going to punish them and the child. This casts doubt on the GOP’s motives. Are they really against teen pregnancy because of the social problems that come with it? This legislation suggests to me that their real stance on teenage sex is simply: It won’t exist if we say it won’t. That is, let’s relegate the teen and her child to outcast status by making them pay for the rest of their lives for a dumb teenage mistake.
Newsflash: Being a dumb teenager includes having sex. It has forever. And it always will.
If you chop out their clits and sew up their vaginas before puberty, like they do in real God-fearing countries, they will find a remarkable new enthusiasm for abstinence. Then, when they are sold into marriage, you can open them up again to impregnate them. It's God's way.