(Top Cartoon by Steve Benson – AZ Republic)

Alexandra Petri is a very talented columnist for The Washington Post, best known for her humor pieces at the paper, called Petri Dishes.

Having recently given birth to a new baby girl herself, Ms. Petri was decidedly not in the mood for humor when writing her Friday Column for the Post eviserating the GOP for it’s actions concerning the 10 year old rape victim in Ohio – When is a child not a child?.

She writes:

“When is a child not a child?

A child is not a child when believing in her existence would force you to notice your own cruelty. When the story of a 10-year-old who had to cross state lines to end a pregnancy that was the product of rape, because the post-Roe laws in the state of Ohio are cruel enough to force birth on a child in her circumstances, is sufficiently monstrous that you want it to be unimaginable.”

A child is not a child to The Republicans, I suppose, when her pregnancy exposes the madness of their six-week abortion ban – with no exceptions besides an indisputable prognosis of death for the mother, should she continue to carry – in which case she becomes a liability who can be called a liar and her assailant attacked more for his ethnicity than his crime.

Ms. Petri continues:

…a child is not a child simply because you are refusing to see her. Because you are trying to believe that what you were asking of her was not monstrous. In the words of the counsel for the National Right to Life, Jim Bopp, the man who should have thought about the people his words would affect as he wrote model laws for state legislatures looking to restrict abortion after Roe v. Wade, “She would have had the baby, and as many women who have had babies as a result of rape, we would hope that she would understand the reason and ultimately the benefit of having the child…

…These are men who don’t know a child from a woman, a person from a womb on two legs, because they simply do not want to know.

This is the way they write these laws. Around actual people, and actual medicine, without a thought to the bloody and painful consequences. An ectopic pregnancy can be whisked elsewhere, in defiance of all medical science. If it’s a legitimate rape, the body has ways of shutting that whole thing down. Do not allow life, with all its tendency toward detail, to get in the way. Protect the children, at all costs. That 10-year-old is not a child, of course. She is a woman. The law is not for her. There are babies to consider! There are children to protect!”

The saddest fact is, Alexandra, that The Republicans do not give a damn about the child, or the fetus, or decency, or right and wrong.

All they care about are the votes of their constituents who demand they pass these laws, no matter the carnage or suffering, or they will toss them out and elect monsters who will.

We will not return to something resembling sanity until we defeat them everywhere possible electorally and mute their senseless bleating.

Help keep the site running, consider supporting.

7 COMMENTS

  1. When is a child not a child? When she comes with a working uterus. Hope young people, particularly young women, are paying attention and registering to vote. Of course actually voting would also benefit them. It’s in your hands now kids so you better take care of the freedoms you are fixing to lose if you don’t get out and vote.

    They’re probably sick of the lecture but this really isn’t affecting baby boomers and soon will be moot for those who came of age in the ’00’s as they’re now approaching or in their forties.

    8
    4
    • You’re forgetting that boomers have grandchildren. And siblings with children and grandchildren.
      Younger people have children. And nieces and nephews.

      • And this this is where a huge chunk of my fury over 2016 comes from. Like her husband Hillary’s political instincts weren’t as liberal as I wanted them to be – too willing to give too much to conservatives sometimes to get other things done. That’s politics – the art of compromise. Yet for all that, and despite her public personae I knew she’d be a good President and if not as gifted as her husband in the public stuff she likely would have been quite effective in that behind the scenes negotiating that has to happen between a WH and Congress. For that and other reasons I had no problem throwing my support behind her and if I didn’t have money to give I had time which I put in on her behalf.

        I’m an old white guy, very tail-end boomer as I’m in my mid sixties and the main wave of boomers came before me but it also means I’m old enough to have grown up with and known what I think of as the main baby boomers my entire life. Leaving aside the white guy part, what I simply couldn’t wrap my head around was the significant number of WOMEN who were at best unenthusiastic about Hillary, if not outright opposed to her being President.

        Just as with so many males, pinning them down on exactly what caused them to have misgivings and plan not to vote or worse vote third-Party virtually always resulted in the old “reasons” category. Even when I brought up the issue of SCOTUS and Trump’s public statements about only appointing judges and Justices opposed to Roe it simply wasn’t enough to move them off the dime. And most had availed themselves of family planning including in some cases abortion. And some were old enough to have lived part of their adult lives before Roe, or contraception itself was legal!

        Even though in so many cases they had daughters and granddaughters it sure as hell seemed that there was a “Well, I’m past having to worry about an unintended pregnancy – it’s the younger folks fight now” attitude.

        Then you have the younger women who were still of child bearing age and/or were raising daughters about to enter adulthood or in early adulthood. Women who’d never known a country in which even if there were barriers thrown up in some places could still access birth control and abortion. Women who like the older ones could only come up with “reasons” for not supporting Hillary. And on the subject of reproductive rights and judges/Justices there was a “Well, for all the talk they probably won’t actually DO it” attitude.

        When I think of the overall popular vote, and how close the vote was in those few key states that allowed Trump his EC fluke of a win the fury rises back up in me.

        Now, NOW we have these “I’ve dreamed of a woman in the WH – just not “her” types freaking out! And I think of the smug, “you’re a white male” attitude they gave me sitting up there on their fucking high horse back in 2016! I believed with all my heart and mind back in 2016 that McConnell wasn’t just stealing a SCOTUS pick from President Obama, but that along with his fascist Federalist Society pals had designs on getting at least one more fanatic on the Court. Former Justice Kennedy’s son had some questionable stuff going on and it was related to Trump’s main “legitimate” bank and remember, Kennedy had already hired law clerks and was getting them in place when he suddenly retired! That led to Kavanaugh and even had that nomination been derailed McConnel would have forced through another. Then there was RBG and her age. The woman was a force of nature, and I know she’d hoped a Democratic President would have a Democratic Senate in place to confirm a replacement for her but it wasn’t a bad bet on McConnell’s and the Triple Fs that she wouldn’t live out Trump’s term.

        Trying to explain that to people including women back in 2016 (especially the part about the “swing vote” Kennedy perhaps retiring and making way for a zealot) was like talking to a brick wall. Well, look at where we are now.

        I hope every younger woman, and even guy who believes women should have reproductive rights and knows their moms & especially grandmas that expressed the “I hope to see a woman in the WH, but I just couldn’t bring myself to vote for THAT woman” regularly looks them in the eye and ask them about their betrayal. Because they deserve to have to sit on the hot-seat.

        20
    • This Homer has been fighting this battle since shortly after Roe was decided. I had had a frustrating afternoon in the u air conditioned library of.my grad school,and emerged to see a,Napoleon Dynamite clone from.The local.Catholic high school handing out anti choice leaflets. I unleashed my annoyance at him. I beat down every stupid talking point and told him to.get back to me when this actually affects him when he knocks up.his girlfriend and expressed serious doubts that he would never get close enough to a female for that to hapen. Got a round of applause from the crowd which had gathered as I flipped off the little proto-incel.

      I was a ,rape crisis counselor and escorted victims to Planned Parenthood for STI testing and the primitive equivalent to Plan B.
      Boomer women are the reason we had Roe in the first place. We marched. We signed petitions We voted for liberal.candidates. We tried to get state laws overturned.

      I am sick and tired of this intergenerational warfare. Second wave feminists almost got the era passed and fought conservatives for every gain women have made. When I applied for tv network and station jobs,,I had to take a typing test because they only bored women as,secretaries brand I had two grad degrees. We fought to end the Pink Collar ghetto. We fought to get credit without requiring our husbands to cosign a loan or credit card. We fought to elect liberal.men and women. We voted to get the ERA,passed. p

      I LIVED through this.I voted for Hillary in the general despite voting for Sanders, Warren in the primary and Biden in the general. Every female friend I have did the same thing,,and I have 600+followers on Facebook, where I am currently am in Zuckertraz for telling off a person on this subject.
      I am an Irish redheaded witch and,I am sick and tired of MEN who didn’t live through this telling me that what I know to be facts are wrong. Yes, conservative women fought us, but didn’t object to the changes we got because they benefited carol them. And if you want to talk about women not voting for Hillary, what about the Bernie Bros and the male idiot s who voted Green and Libertarian

      You guys pushing this meme should just sit and

  2. Mr. Bopp may think differently if he had to carry and raise a constant daily reminder of violence. A life sentence for 2 human beings imposed by a rapist who more often than not will get off scot free to victimize more prey. A generation full of traumatized second class citizens and sick bullies. But then again the cruelty is the point. A future Mr. Bopp does not have to live in. No consequences for another smug POS.

    13
  3. I know that it’s not legal “yet”, but every male who causes an unwanted pregnancy needs to be neutered; go whole hog. That is the only way to stop rape and other sexual assault. I’m fed up with the hypocrisy of “Right to Life” groups. In Kansas, voting started this week to amend our Constitution to say there is no right to abortion. Voter registration and early voting are much stronger than usual; the Amendment was set for an election when few people other than Republicans usually vote.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

The maximum upload file size: 128 MB. You can upload: image, audio, video, document, spreadsheet, interactive, text, archive, code, other. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop files here