Pinky Links

so, i saw over at Feministing that some douchebag legislator in Florida wants to charge doctors who perform abortions with first-degree felonies punishable by up to life in prison. they provided his e-mail address there, and i was fired up enough to shoot him one. (i’m not from Florida or anything, but what the hell, i AM a woman.) i’m putting it here for posterity, and if i get any kind of real response back from his office, i’ll make sure to mention it.

To the Honorable Charles E. Van Zant: [it automatically starts it for you that way]

It has come to my attention that you are the sponsor of HB 1097, which seeks to charge doctors who perform abortions for women with felonies and imprison them for life.

I have a few problems with your proposed legislation:

First, why are you prosecuting the doctors and not the women seeking to have the abortions done? Do you think that a woman who asks a doctor to perform an abortion (in the case of rape or incest; in the case that the fetus has a deformity or genetic defect that would make its life outside the womb painful, miserable, expensive and short) should also be charged with a crime? If you don’t think so, why? I find it very hard to believe that a woman who asks for and receives an abortion doesn’t know that it’s an abortion, that she’s terminating her pregnancy.

Secondly, I see that you are a Republican representative. Is one of the tenets of your political ideology not “smaller government” with less intrusion into the private lives of its citizens? More freedom from government regulations, laws and programs that tell us what to do with our money, property, families, jobs and selves? I am politically literate, so I know that the answer to these questions I pose to you is yes. So, I ask you: How do you reconcile this philosophy of smaller government and less intrusion into the lives of private citizens with your sponsorship of legislation that seeks to regulate the choices of private citizens about their own bodies?

Since you are a Republican, I consider it safe to assume that you are of some Christian faith persuasion. While I respect that the current interpretation of some choice Biblical scriptures by some very vocal Christians and Catholics is that abortion is the ending of a human life, I resent the fact that you are attempting to impose that RELIGIOUS view onto other people who may not share it, and I resent the fact that you are attempting to do it through legislation when it says in the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause (and was later clarified by Thomas Jefferson) that there is a separation of church and state in our country. Personally, I do not share your belief and I find it infuriating that people like you intend to legislate my body and my personal decisions based on your religious moral code.

I identify as a pro-choice woman informed by the personal experience of having a uterus and all the responsibilities that come along with it, and I very much resent the thought of you, a man with no comparable firsthand experience, writing legislation telling me and other women what to do with our bodies. I also think it’s safe to assume that you have little or no experience with how difficult it is to raise a child while working full-time and without the support of a spouse, significant other or family to help you take care of a baby.

Where we can find common ground is this: I believe that abortions should be as rare as possible. They are difficult decisions to make, especially when the pregnancy terminated was planned. The best way to address this issue, then, is to make sure that women get the proper prenatal care so the likelihood of birth defects, low birth weights and other health complications is reduced, and to provide women with comprehensive and accurate information about sex and contraceptives and to provide easy and affordable access to contraceptives.

We women, Mr. Zant, are intelligent enough to be trusted by you (the government) with making the best decisions for ourselves and our bodies, whether you agree with them or not. But your sponsorship of this legislation indicates to me that you do not share this belief. You believe that you are more qualified to decide what is right for women than women for themselves, than the doctors who went to school for almost a decade studying the science, ethics and practice of human medicine. I find it arrogant of you to believe that you know better than the medical experts and better than the women dealing firsthand with their situation

The current state of national abortion law is not perfect, but it should satisfy you: those opposed to abortion are not forced to have abortions, they are free to speak out against the practice, and “partial-birth abortion” has been outlawed; those who believe that abortion should be an option for women facing dangerous or otherwise unwanted pregnancies can access them (not easily enough, however) and are also free to express their support of the option. Free speech for all, and limited government intrusion into our private lives and bodies. I cannot understand why you’d want to go further with the legislation of reproductive rights.