To all Republicans ...

[Stonepounder]

who insist on banning all abortions because "it kills innocent human beings."

So do chemical spills in our water. And gun rampages in our malls and at our schools. And starvation because mothers can't earn a living wage even working 60-hour weeks. And curable diseases because parents have no access to affordable health care.

And while you sanctimoniously stick your noses into my family planning choices. you have smugly opposed every attempt at safety regulations, gun control, raising the minimum wage, and the ACA.

You are the worst king of hypocrites: arrogant and ignorant. You are what's wrong with America today.

--The Reprimand Project

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. If those who wanted to ban all abortions

also supported free prenatal care for all pregnant women, free contraceptive advice/devices, free medical care for all, then I'd be a bit more likely to think they were okay.

But no. Their standing is, You Got Pregnant, Have the Baby, It's Your Responsibility.

If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.

Women do NOT, and I repeat, DO NOT get pregnant all by their little lonesomes. There's a man involved. Who invariably (I'm referring here to unwanted pregnancies that might result in abortion) get off scott free. The entire responsibility is dumped on the woman, regardless of the circumstances.

Perhaps women who have babies because they couldn't get abortions, were to drop those babies off in the offices of the various Governors and legislatures who want to ban all abortions, maybe after a week or so they'd understand just how many babies are involved. What the responsibility really is.

But most women are, even in the face of forced child-bearing, far more responsible than the men who would make abortion illegal. They do what they must. They endure childbirth. They nurture the baby. They raise the child in the face of constant approbation, humiliation, no societal support whatsoever. Those women are the true heroes.

A personal note: While I never had an unwanted baby myself (and despite my screen name I'm a woman), I'm one of six children. My mother was married to my father, but he was an alcoholic, and when things got unbearable, my immensely brave mother packed us up, moved us across the country, and started a new life. They never formally divorced, and Dad never paid any sort of child support, although to be honest, he had almost no spare money. But that experience has informed me for decades about what it might be like to be an unwed mother.

We need, as a society, to be offering every possible help to pregnant women. Including abortion. Including full financial support for the resulting baby, if that's what happens. No judgement. But men in charge want to punish women for having sex, while they NEVER pay any consequences themselves.

[Stonepounder]

2. I've never understood why men are so damn threatened by women.

Why there is this seemingly almost innate need to keep women down, keep them sexualized, and make them subservient. For my entire life, men who 'sleep around' are 'jocks' and women who dare to have sex outside of marriage are 'sluts'. Why women can never be 'equal' (let alone 'better') than men at anything (other than being suzy homemaker).

Forcing women into pregnancy no matter what is another form of repression. Period. Because, as you point out, they only care about the pregnancy. Once that 'precious, beating heart of live' is born, they pious 'right to lifers' don't give a shit about what happens next.

And I just don't get it.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. I honestly think that many men

are completely terrified by our ability to have babies. It is something they so completely cannot do themselves, that they must work very hard to control it.

Plus, what women go through in childbirth (and I have two children of my own) is something almost no man (in my opinion) could possibly endure once, let alone more times. We women have a strength that terrifies men.