Texas and the Empty Cradle

 

My heart leapt up when I heard that Kate Cox would be allowed to terminate her genetically ill-fated pregnancy, but I knew she better have a surgical theater in her living room, because the AG of TX, Ken Paxton, impeached, indicted, self-anointed protector of the fruit of the Texan wombs, has nothing better to do than threaten doctors who engage in a court-sanctioned medical procedure. He would ruin this woman's health and future fertility, and the careers and lives of the doctors who help this woman, because?

Because he's so pro-life? Because Texas isn't pro-life. Not when it comes to the death penalty.  The strict abortion ban isn't necessarily saving lives. But it would be better to make an example of this woman, and force her to give birth to a child that might exist just to die, because?

I've long felt that while life doesn't necessarily begin at conception, mothering does. You can decide to eat right or not drink or smoke and maybe figure out how to get pre-natal care. But sometimes even basic ability to take care of your body and your baby's body isn't in your means. You can't afford to eat right. You have an addiction. You don't have access to health care. And sometimes, you just get a bad genetic draw. Nothing you do will ever make you carry a wanted child to term, because that isn't what was in the cards. 

Your right as a parent should include whether the inviable or barely viable child should be born. After all if the only kind thing you ever did for your baby was to ensure they never suffered, is that not enough when nothing else but that can be done? 

Texas' laws make it hard to say what kind of pregnancy failure is punishable. It almost seems like they want someone to be punished just for being female-bodied, regardless of whether they wanted a kid or not.  And they do persecute women. They just do. Or create situations where care is delayed and women suffer. There is a lot of misogyny there.

And if it happens in Texas, well, why not be tried anywhere else? Some people want to do away with birth control. Some conservatives want to do away with no-fault divorce. And of course, conservatives would love to undo gay marriages.

What gives the government the right over our living and dying, our marrying and our holy gatherings? Why would any legal entity want to come between the doctor and patient about a family matter that nothing will remedy--not even the court? Because Ken Paxton cannot, Canute-like, command the tide--not even Canute could. And his huffing-puffery about whether this woman has to carry a doomed pregnancy to term at the risk of her own life is a pose for his friends. A ghoulish display for the "pro-zombie fetus life" shits who don't really care what happens to this woman, or her family, so long as they can get pro-life signifying selfies in the bank. But it won't make that baby stay alive. And Republican government would never offer the kind of healthcare that would preserve a congenitally badly-disabled child anyway. They don't even give a shit about schooling for special-needs kids. 

And all the wishing won't help that woman knowing her uterus might be a tomb for one child, and no more. 

Ladies, learn from this. The rocking of an empty cradle is a sign we need to rule the world. Because men don't understand. 

And as for Ken Paxton's "because"? Signifying he's doing some kind of moral business by harassing pregnant women undergoing the hardest trial of their lives is his way of trying to be politically relevant. Golf clap: shoot his lying shithead ass into the sun.