Greetings from the Land of Enchantment

Leave it to the South . . .

. . . to find yet another way to humiliate women. South Carolina and Missouri are both looking to pass laws that would require a woman (in the language of the law, 'mother') seeking an abortion to review the ultrasound and 'alternative' literature an hour prior to the procedure.

This seems to me at the most fundamental, human level, cruel; at the political level, manipulative; and just plain, downright mean. It also seems to point to the continued belief by those who oppose abortion, so called right-to-lifer's, that a woman seeking an abortion is somehow morally corrupt or without due gravitus in making this particular decision about her own body.

There will always be abuses of every sort. But from my experience, most women seeking an abortion do not do so lightly, or without the naturally arising feelings of doubt, pain, and remorse. It's a hard decision, but those who make it do so because they think it is what is best--for themselves and for the potential life.

Yogi Bhajan always supported a woman's right to choose. Primarily because he asserted that what was best for the woman was best for the child, the family, and the world. If the timing was not right and the woman's interests were not served, the child, the family, and the world would bear the cost.

Seeking an abortion is not a decision made over lunch, in-between shopping excursions. It's an often painful dialogue between your deepest wishes and your present circumstances. In many states, it's a grueling process of driving hours to the nearest metropolitan city that even provides the service--often having to make more than one trip--the initial appointment and the procedure never falling on the same day. To make the process even more humiliating seems to me full of spite and mysoginy--rage even--which begs the question: What did women ever do to the South?

Labels: politics

posted by Sat Purkh Kaur Khalsa @ 8:29 AM