Assaults on Women
Today is Friday, 16 February 2007.
An anti-choice (male) Tennessee legislator has introduced a bill which would require doctors to file a death certificate following performance of an abortion.
Tennessee law already requires doctors to file reports on abortions, though without any information identifying the women who receive them. Death certificates require identifying information, such as Social Security numbers.
I think it not uncharitable to presume that the legislator’s real intent is to out women who exercise their legal right to choice, so they may be harassed and attacked by anti-choice extremists.
Fortunately, the bill seems to stand little chance of passage in the Democratic-controlled Tennessee House.
Which brings me to a favorite topic, which some may think is a strange linkage. (I understand the story above and the history below as both symptomatic of patriarchal fascist values.) Why do anti-choice activists, who praise motherhood to the skies and regard abortion as murder, almost invariably support the capitalist system, which puts an economic value of zero on motherhood?
Why an economic value of zero? Originally, most spouses worked side-by-side at subsistence agriculture. As primitive capitalism took form, males began the transition to work outside the home, in a cash economy, while women were overwhelmingly relegated to household tasks. The shapers of capitalism chose to include no mechanism which would place an economic value on “women’s work”, and compensate them accordingly.
Of course, this omission is insoluble under capitalism. I fear humanity is in for a long wait before this System changes for the better.
An anti-choice (male) Tennessee legislator has introduced a bill which would require doctors to file a death certificate following performance of an abortion.
Tennessee law already requires doctors to file reports on abortions, though without any information identifying the women who receive them. Death certificates require identifying information, such as Social Security numbers.
I think it not uncharitable to presume that the legislator’s real intent is to out women who exercise their legal right to choice, so they may be harassed and attacked by anti-choice extremists.
Fortunately, the bill seems to stand little chance of passage in the Democratic-controlled Tennessee House.
Which brings me to a favorite topic, which some may think is a strange linkage. (I understand the story above and the history below as both symptomatic of patriarchal fascist values.) Why do anti-choice activists, who praise motherhood to the skies and regard abortion as murder, almost invariably support the capitalist system, which puts an economic value of zero on motherhood?
Why an economic value of zero? Originally, most spouses worked side-by-side at subsistence agriculture. As primitive capitalism took form, males began the transition to work outside the home, in a cash economy, while women were overwhelmingly relegated to household tasks. The shapers of capitalism chose to include no mechanism which would place an economic value on “women’s work”, and compensate them accordingly.
Of course, this omission is insoluble under capitalism. I fear humanity is in for a long wait before this System changes for the better.
posted by HH at 10:19 AM
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