Blog For Iowa

Has no idea what he is doing or saying

Chris Matthews stirred a real pot of controversy Wednesday night when he asked Donald Trump what the punishment for having an abortion should be if and when Trump becomes president and abortion is made illegal in the United States. Trump tried to BS his way through. However, little thought is ever given by the forced birth faction to the fallout from banning abortions beyond a woman now having a baby she probably didn’t want.

Matthews premise was that if abortion were illegal then an abortion would be a crime that must be punished. Should the woman be punished? Trump said yes immediately although he didn’t specify a punishment. Trump however said nothing about the abortionist (‘doctor’ was the word used, although we all know the abortionist will probably not be a doctor if abortion is illegal).

When Matthews asked if the father of the child should be punished Trump simply said “No.”

Amazing isn’t it folks? In the situation where an illegal abortion were to take place the woman according to Trump would be the only player. He later amended his statement to say that the ‘doctor’ should also suffer some punishment. Still he did not say the third person involved – the father – should suffer any punishment.

What wasn’t discussed – and hasn’t been discussed anywhere – is that even in today’s time of legalized abortion women are punished severely for not becoming pregnant in the way prescribed by religionist moralists that populate our state and national legislatures.

Depending on where a woman lives, if she becomes pregnant and for whatever reason decides that having a child is not a good idea, getting a legal procedure in the United States has been rendered nearly impossible. Especially across the South and west state legislatures have made access to a legal medical procedure nearly impossible by regulating abortion clinics into oblivion. Where legislatures have not been able to cause clinics to close through regulation they have severely limited access to them.

Beyond the regulatory gauntlet that state legislatures have thrown down to stop abortions, women often have to go through personal harassment just to be able to enter a clinic that could easily be described as terrorism. Despite the obvious threat to the safety of women entering clinics, The Supreme Court two years ago ruled that such protests were legal.

Thus when a pregnant woman takes charge of her own life she has to face a system that punishes her and often her physician or care giver for simply attempting to access a legal medical procedure. This in what is the purported home of freedom and liberty by those who do all they can to stop such access.

Now when groups go to such extremes to force women to have babies that will eventually grow into children, teens and finally full fledged adults you would think that they would work hard to set up programs to help such badly wanted children grow into well rounded adults by affording them good health care, good schools and decent food.

As we all know this is just the opposite of what happens in this country. Once the fetus is born and is a baby, those who worked so hard to keep the fetus from being aborted through legislation and other forms of harassment now abandon that child. A baby born into poverty in this country now joins the millions of citizens who are punished severely for the American sin of being poor.

We don’t need to enumerate what happens to the poor in this country. Since the so-called Reagan revolution, being poor has been treated as a crime. Therefore even in today’s American society where abortion is a legal procedure women are punished for seeking an abortion and punished if they are poor and carry the child to birth. If the family is poor, the child suffers, probably their whole life, for the so-called sins of the mother.

Through legislation and societal norms we are already punishing women who seek abortions. We are also punishing women who are poor and we punish the children of the poor for being born poor. Our Republican brethren are only concerned about forcing women to have their babies, care nothing about their pre-natal care and have set up a system that punishes such families if they are poor.

Best guess is they are trying to curry some form of favor from their god that will be redeemed when they reach their heaven. One would think that any favors earned from forcing someone to give birth would be negated by forcing any child or other citizen to live an impoverished life while others accumulate massive fortunes.

Not really sure what else America could do to level more punishment on women, but I am sure there are right wingers with legislation ready to go to punish women even more should they succeed in making abortion illegal. They won’t stop abortion for sure, but they may someday make it illegal.

Before you look around and think Iowa is a relative island of sanity in a ocean of misogynist hate, let me remind you that that is because Democrats control one house of the legislature by one vote. The state races this fall are every bit as important as the presidential race. If you haven’t noticed – much of the damage in this country in recent years has been done at the state level. Bob Vander Plaats and his ilk are champing at the bit to have Republicans in control of this state.