Fauxlifers

Jeb! Bush recently spoke at the Send North America conference, a large evangelical gathering. Jeb! said he wasn’t sure we need half a billion dollars for women’s health issues. His handlers have been getting tons of aerobic exercise trying to backpedal on that statement. It’s not wise to be so honest about the fact that women are regarded as the disposable gender. Jeb! and the rest of the GOP candidates have seized on defunding Planned Parenthood as a way to stand out from the rest of the pack (who all have identical ideology) and ride to the White House on a wave of loathing for women. Oh, wait – those loathers call themselves “pro-life.” The only “life” they care about is that of an imaginary fetus. Once it becomes real, they lose interest in it. They certainly have no interest in making sure it has access to health care, food, housing, or education.

Jeb! distinguished himself when he was Governor of Florida, by defunding Planned Parenthood.  He further burnished his fauxlife cred by getting involved in the end of life decisions of the Schiavo family. The fauxlifers don’t usually bother much with the born, until the end of their lives approaches. They really love a chance to get involved in a big right-to-die situation, and especially if the patient involved is female. Terry Schiavo wasn’t the only one. Remember Karen Ann Quinlan or Nancy Cruzan? More recently the fauxlife crowd scored a twofer, by trying to force the family of Marlise Munoz to keep her on life support. Munoz was ghoulishly kept on life support, against the wishes of her family, for two months because she was pregnant when she died. Fauxlifers are also intent on making sure we all suffer as much as possible rather than choose to end our own lives with medical assistance in the event of a terminal illness.

Some anti-abortion terrorists doctored some videotapes about Planned Parenthood, and now the GOP is using this as another weapon in the ongoing war against women. It’s the equivalent of Jimmy “the pimp” O’Keefe’s highly edited sting against ACORN. You remember ACORN – the community based organization that advocated for health care, housing, and voter registration in low and moderate-income neighborhoods. ACORN was completely destroyed by those fake videos. By the time they were exonerated, the damage had been done. In August of 2013 Congress was gearing up for a 13^th vote to defund ACORN. ACORN had been defunct for 3 years at the time. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn they’re STILL voting on ACORN. They’ve voted 56 times to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act, and there’s talk of another vote in the fall.

The Planned Parenthood videos are similar in that respect. Highly edited, for the most emotional possible ginning up of the fauxlifers. Planned Parenthood is selling body parts of the BAYBEEZ!  It’s not true, but truth doesn’t matter to this crowd.  These people don’t care that some BAYBEEZ grow up to be homeless, or hungry, or get lead poisoned as the result of a sleazy slumlord. They’ll vote against any kind of funding to protect children and families. They’ll vote against “inconveniencing” landlords by forcing them to eliminate lead paint from their buildings. After all, landlords are in business! Congressmen and Senators who can’t lift a finger to do anything that needs doing in the US House or Senate have all kinds of energy to spare for interfering in women’s lives. They are desperate to ensure that low and moderate-income women have even fewer health care options.

Imagine how much better things would be going here in the USA if these elected officials were interested in finding a way to repair our failing state and national infrastructures. Roads and bridges aren’t sexy, we are told. (Apparently making women’s reproductive decisions IS sexy.) What if our alleged leaders were all about finding a way to be competitive in telecommunications infrastructure? The US ranks far behind other countries in terms of internet speed, connectivity, and the availability of public wifi. South Korea has the fastest internet speed and the cheapest prices in the world. The best speeds that consumers can buy in major US cities are half as fast, and cost $300 a month. One would think that the boosters of “American exceptionalism” would be interested in ensuring that there is, in fact, such a thing. One would be wrong. As long as we have more guns, sell more weapons, and have the biggest war machine, we are exceptional. The country is falling apart, but hey – we can force women to serve as involuntary incubators! USA! USA!

In Texas, Governor Smart Glasses and the Texas legislature cut the state’s family planning budget by 2/3 as a way of “wiping out the abortion industry.” They succeeded in closing 53 women’s health clinics around the state. Not a one of those clinics that closed performed abortions. All those closings succeed in doing is to make it harder for women to access screenings and health services. The other unspoken goal is to ensure that women don’t have access to contraception, either. After all, he who has control of women’s reproductive decisions has control of women’s lives.

In civilized countries, women’s health and reproductive decisions are their own business. In civilized countries, there is universal health care, family leave, subsidized childcare, and no wage gap for women. In civilized countries children don’t die every day because they found a gun in the bedroom. This is another issue that shows the fauxlifers for what they are. They don’t have any problem accepting the idea that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of infants and children.

Women having bodily autonomy is unacceptable. Guns and moar gunz? Now that’s REAL freedom.

Published as an oped in the Conway Daily Sun newspaper on August 7, 2015