Many women and others across this country are on the verge of losing their reproductive rights, a fact which has apparently just occurred to several liberal men who have been working in political journalism even longer than I have. It's a bad time. On top of that, we are headed towards an absolute minefield of people, mostly men, saying a whole lot of terrible, deeply cringe-inducing things about how very magical and wonderful it is for people to lose said rights.
This week, Madison Cawthorn did not disappoint. Speaking to Congress this week, the North Carolina congressman waxed what he clearly thought was poetic about abortion and pregnancy.
Cawthorn kicked his speech off with a ridiculous metaphor about a person taking a beautiful Polaroid of a landscape and waiting for it to develop, when some other person walks up and tears their precious photo into pieces, saying it wasn't a photo yet because it hadn't developed. You know, just like abortions, except not at all like abortions unless people are being forced by other people to have abortions, which would in fact be the exact opposite of reproductive choice.
A silent genocide has slipped beneath the conscience of America. Eternal souls, woven into earthen vessels, sanctified by Almighty God, and endowed with the miracle of life are denied their birth by a nation born of freedom.pic.twitter.com/XhVhkFoirX
— Rep. Madison Cawthorn (@Rep. Madison Cawthorn) 1638400921
If I take a picture, I have every right to rip up that picture, delete that picture or not even bother to get that picture developed because it's my picture and I have the right to decide if I want it to take up space in my phone or pay for it to get developed wherever it is that they do that now. And if I don't want to get my film developed, Madison Cawthorn can't make me. Because it's none of his damn business.
Cawthorn then explained how, if fetuses are God's most precious Polaroids, women are the earthen vessels for said Polaroids.
Madame Speaker, a silent genocide has slipped beneath the conscience of America. Precious works of our creator formed and set apart meet death before they breathe life. Eternal souls, woven into earthen vessels, sanctified by Almighty God, and endowed with the miracle of life are denied their birth by a nation born of freedom. God’s breath of life blown away by the breath of man. This cruel and fallen world may seem too filthy for their very presence, but these precious temples are crafted in the image of God himself. Someday, when science darkens the soul of the Left (????), our nation will repent. But until then, the carnage of this unconscionable deed will stain the fabric of our nation.
Here is a lesson for you, Madison Cawthorn. This is earthenware:
File: Three Greek Earthenware Vessels.jpg - Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org
Here are some human women:
Get it, because it's a still from the 1939 classic 'The Women?'
Do note that, unlike the earthenware, actual human women are not inanimate objects. We have thoughts and feelings and plans and dreams and goals, many of which do not entail endlessly bearing children for several decades like some TLC fundie family. Surely, if Cawthorn's God had merely wanted some "earthen vessels" created explicitly for splashing his image all over the world, as he seems to be insinuating here, he would have broken off Adam's rib and made it into a freaking test tube.
Unfortunately, Cawthorn can't actually prove that his God exists or has any authority in this nation. What obligation do I, an atheist, have to turn my body into a selfie factory for a God I don't believe in? If I wanted, I could make up a God right now and say that God thinks that Madison Cawthorn should shut the hell up and stop doing abortion poetry forever. That, I believe, would be just as valid as Madison Cawthorn's God's ideas about my uterus.
OPEN THREAD!
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Please tell your mom, I think she is a hero.
My mother is heavily involved in NOW. And when I was a teenager, she used to try to get me to come along to help with escort duty. I always declined. Even then I knew that would be a terrible idea with only one result. I would be in jail, continuously. I’ve no patience for physical intimidation of vulnerable people, and lack the level of self-control in that specific space to keep from reacting to rabid protesters. I’m glad there are people who are better capable than me to do the task. It’s a necessary service and that’s still so very unfortunate.