Just got back from the fully-funded month-long ‘Smashing the Patriarchy’ study tour of South America. And I don’t even speak Spanish, or Brazilian! I don’t even remember signing up for it, actually! Anyway, I arrived back in global-warming-afflicted Melbourne and read the news. And I read that Queensland has decided we are still living in the 1940s when it comes to abortion rights! I auto-expectorated my latte all over my copy of the Saturday Paper, let me tell you! And the jerks in the cafe wouldn’t even give me a replacement! They were probably alt-right pro-abortionists! Last time I’m going there!
Now, can we talk about abortion? Really? It’s 2017, people! This conversation has been had, back in the ’70s when medical research was not as advanced as it is now! We should never need to talk about abortion again! Everybody now knows that despite having being conceived by humans, having unique human DNA, growing, and being the first stage of human life, human foetuses are not human in any way, shape or form, and therefore have no human right to life and safety! (That is, unless their mother says the foetus is human. Only she can decide that.) Like, duh! Do you need a diagram for this? Foetuses don’t have rights! And even when they are a little older and they start to develop faces, they don’t have faces either! Only a perverted hate criminal with patriarchy-induced myopia would look into an ultrasound and see a face there. ‘Yeah, sure it’s a face, RWNJs! And I suppose there’s a face on Mars, too!’ (That’s me being sarcastic!)
What really blows my mind is that there are people who think that a girl or woman who’s had sex and then found out she’s pregnant should not have the right to destroy the foetus immediately and without any hindrance or moral, social or even health consequences! That’s like, a basic human right. Even the UN says so! And the UN’s been around since like the ’40s, so I think they have a bit of street cred on moral issues by now! Ya think?
But, I guess there is no rhyme or reason when it comes to understanding the mindset of the Right. Oh, will we ever be rid of them?
Anyway, because of restrictive, patriarchal abortion laws, there are still loads of girls and women whose lives are a living hell! They are made to feel guilty for ‘destroying’ their ‘offspring’; or when ‘abortion mills’ ‘sell’ ‘foetal body parts’ to ‘pharmaceutical and medical research companies’ for ‘money’! But why should they feel guilty about any of that?! Why should anyone feel guilty about pursuing a life of hedonism and destruction? Guilt is a patriarchal construct. All women/girls should have sex whenever they feel like it and abort whomever or whatever they please! Women and girls don’t need guilt trips from the patriarchy! They need to be put in a safe space and told over and over that they did the right thing! (Heck, they might even get a taste for doing it again!)
I thought, how can I alleviate the suffering of those poor women who just want to get an abortion in peace? Then, it hit me. I had one of the grad students from the Department of Inequality Studies make something to cheer up all those poor, victimised women. Ravyyn Darkchylde is currently doing a PhD on girls who cut themselves. The specific subject of her research is: why are white girls so over-represented in the ranks of cutters? Where are all the brown girls, and Asians? And more importantly, where are the males? It stinks of patriarchy oppression and white hegemony, and I am eagerly looking forward to Ravyyn’s research confirming exactly that, when the PhD is published some time next decade, or if not then in the 2030s.
Anyway, with great thanks to generous grants from friends of friends at Arts Victoria and the Australia Council for the Arts, Ravyyn Darkchylde came up with the below cartoon. Let it be a beacon, lighting the way to happiness and laughter in the face of the patriarchal oppression of antique 1940s abortion laws! Let this war on women end, and let abortion become normal! Come on! Let’s get to the point where we can all have a laugh about it!
I know, right? This is New Yorker quality. I think they would be ‘Ravyyn’ mad not to hire her!
You know, I was so excited when Ravyyn came to my office to deliver her cartoon, sat down, started sobbing about the abortion she had when she was fifteen, then headed out to the ladies’ room clutching a small black pencil case, that I decided to do a cartoon myself. This is based on a real episode from my life, people. It’s good to laugh about it now. Hey, I don’t pretend to be as fynny as say, a Will Andersyn, but I hope this makes you smile too:
Ha-ha, what a doofus I was! All true though, I assure you!
But back to the serious business of normalising abortion: What steps should we take next?
The first thing is that we have to assure all women who have an abortion that it’s GOOD and NORMAL. That it’s their HUMAN RIGHT. We have to do this ceaselessly. We have to tell them again and again that the feelings of guilt they are having are due to the PATRIARCHY OPPRESSING them. We need to STIFLE all dissent about this. 150m ‘no-go’ zones near abortion clinics are not enough. We should just jail anyone who is against abortion!
Maybe we could enlist Bill Nye, the Science Guy! He’s one of us. All he has to do is say that a foetus is not human. Then voila! People would believe him, because he’s a scientist!
Or, maybe we could go one step further. Let’s think outside the box, here, people! What about reinstating the Moloch cult? Then we wouldn’t be ‘having an abortion’, but ‘sacrificing babies to Moloch’, and engaging in a millennia-old religious custom! I mean, wouldn’t that make abortion more culturally acceptable? Nobody (on the Left) complains about Islamic or aboriginal religious practices, so why would they complain about Molochianism? Heck, we could have temple prostitutes, ecstatic orgies, the works! Time to par-tay, people!
Well, that’s just an idea from humble ol’ me! The main thing is that we have to do whatever it takes to make abortion normal. Remembering, always about the next goal. The next battleground: Abortion rights for trans-women.
