We have literally stopped abortion in the state of Mississippi. Three blocks from the Capitol sits the only abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi. A bill was drafted. It said, if you would perform an abortion in the state of Mississippi, you must be a certified OB/GYN and you must have admitting privileges to a hospital. Anybody here in the medical field knows how hard it is to get admitting privileges to a hospital…. “It’s going to be challenged, of course, in the Supreme Court and all — but literally, we stopped abortion in the state of Mississippi, legally, without having to— Roe vs. Wade…. [I]f course, there you have the other side. They’re like, ‘Well, the poor pitiful women that can’t afford to go out of state are just going to start doing them at home with a coat hanger.’ That’s what we’ve heard over and over and over…. “But hey, you have to have moral values. You have to start somewhere, and that’s what we’ve decided to do.
One of the things I’ve struggled to understand is why so many are so willing to force their narrow religiosity upon those who happen not to think along the same lines. Instead of the very simple “live and let live,” America today is infected with a virulent strain of “If you don’t believe as I do, you’re evil and therefore deserving only of destruction.” Mississippi State Rep. Bubba Carpenter (and I’ll spare you the “Bubba” jokes) is undeniably proud of making abortion- a legal right guaranteed by the Supreme Court- virtually inaccessible. Conservative zealots have worked hard to circumvent Roe v. Wade; it seems they care only for achieving their goal: abolishing abortion, the Supreme Court or the rule of law be damned.
Then there are those, many of whom also think like Carpenter, who have worked zealously to outlaw same-sex marriage. Arguing that same-sex marriage is somehow a threat to their own marriage, they with increasing success have worked to ensure that the GLBT community is legally defined as second-class, less deserving of the rights and benefits that accrue to “normal” people.
How is threatening the health and well-being of women indicative of “moral values?” How does enshrining hatred, discrimination, and exclusivity into a state’s constitution prove that said state is morally superior to those (Iowa, Massachusetts) who allow the LGBT community the same rights and benefits that heterosexuals enjoy? We’re not talking “special rights;” it’s really just about human rights. Then again, I suppose if you view a minority class of people as subhuman, then you’re just doing what needs to be done, right?
Hey, if they didn’t want to be discriminated against, they should have chosen to be straight, knowhutimean??
In the end, I suppose it’s easier to oppress those we don’t or can’t be bothered to understand than it is to take a look inward and determine what it is that has so blackened our collective heart and stripped us of our compassion.
