I keep reading about all the anti-abortion activity, over 1000 bills proposed by state and federal legislators last year, and then I look to the activity that would limit contraception, usually from the same sources and I am led to believe that the proponents of all this legislation and their followers must hate sex. But this can’t be possible because those that can, seem to be propagating at a rate guaranteed to overpopulate the planet. I guess they feel that they have to in order to make up for all those abortions.
I’ve investigated the problem from a historical perspective and it has become obvious where all this nonsense is leading. I predict that within the next ten years if, a president is produced from the religious right, we will have passed a federal anti-masturbation law. Ridiculous you say, but let’s take a look at just a couple of the Right’s legislative efforts in the anti-abortion realm.
Several states, led by Kentucky, (why are they always in the south?) are passing legislation that forces women seeking abortion to watch an ultrasound of the fetus, requires a doctor to describe what the woman is watching and carries a $250,000 Dollar fine if she averts her eyes. What century are we living in, and who says we are opposed to Sharia law?
Another of these messes, the Protect Life Act, allows hospitals that receive federal funding to reject any woman in need of an abortion even if it’s necessary to save her life. What kind of demented sadist thinks this shit up?
Of course there are a number of bills that deal with rape. Mostly they want to know what kind of rape produced the pregnancy. This is like identifying the caliber of a bullet that is lodged in your heart in order to decide whether or not to take it out. Certainly there are different kinds of rape but defining them is about as relevant to the prevailing situation as knowing the caliber of the slug in your heart.
But the one that really rings my bell is the Mississippi legislation, (it’s those good ole boys again), the aim of which, is to establish as a real live person, every result of fertilization, cloning or the functional equivalent thereof from the second it happens. This would, of course, ban all abortions, almost all birth control, along with stem cell research and in vitro fertilization for couples trying to conceive. Yes, I know. This last is contrary to the reason for the bill, but then, this was Mississippi. The guy who proposed this is in lockstep with the clown who decided that corporations are people but that’s another column.
All this brings me back to the masturbation legislation, which will be faced with a huge crisis of applicability. On the one hand (no pun intended), eliminating masturbation will add potentially significant numbers to the occasion of intercourse and the possibility of unwanted pregnancy. It would seem therefore, that the anti-abortion forces would be against such legislation. Before we leap to such a shaky conclusion we must, however, consider the contraception avenue. Masturbation is, by its nature, a functional form of contraception, every whank being one less shot at the baby derby, thereby significantly reducingthe possibility of the need for an abortion but at the same time entering another competitor (hardly new) to the contraception list which is almost as hated by the religious right as abortion.
At least we can hope that the introduction of masturbation legislation will highlight and possibly clarify the analogous points that the religious right has long been bumbling over. Should they go all out against abortion, enlisting every possible tool that can be used for the prevention of both the act and the need for the act or should they also continue their opposition to contraception, thereby providing the possibility of more abortions.
As a former King of Siam once said, “It’s a puzzlement!” and one that doesn’t even take into account the seed spilling highlights that are featured in most versions of those giddy international best sellers by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.