{"id":204,"date":"2012-06-19T17:12:47","date_gmt":"2012-06-19T23:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/?p=204"},"modified":"2016-05-02T11:06:56","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T17:06:56","slug":"the-vagina-demagogues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/egregioustwaddle\/2012\/06\/the-vagina-demagogues.html","title":{"rendered":"The Vagina Demagogues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

decorum<\/strong>, n. Dignified propriety of behavior, speech, dress, etc.<\/p>\n

draconian<\/strong>, adj. rigorous; unusually severe or cruel (from the harsh law codes of Draco)<\/p>\n

vagina<\/strong>, n. (Anatomy) The passage leading from the opening of the vulva to the cervix of the uterus in female mammals<\/p>\n

The Toronto Star<\/em> reports<\/a><\/strong> on today\u2019s \u201cVaginas Take Back the Capitol!\u201d protest in Lansing, Michigan, during which a crowd of some 2,500 gathered to hear portions of the play The Vagina Monologues<\/em> read aloud by playwright Eve Ensler and two members of the Michigan state legislature, Democratic Reps. Lisa Brown and Barb Byrum. The event was held to protest the two legislators\u2019 having been issued a one-day censure by the Republican house majority leader in response to what Republican leaders claimed were violations of decorum committed by the women during debate over a bill proposing new restrictions on abortions.<\/p>\n

Specifically, Rep. Byrum attempted to continue speaking after her objections to the bill\u2014and her proposed counter-amendment requiring men to undergo restrictions on obtaining Viagra or vasectomies\u2014were gaveled down. Rep. Brown expressed her opposition to the bill by comparing government regulation of abortion to rape, saying \u201cI\u2019m flattered that you\u2019re all so interested in my vagina, but No means No.\u201d A third Democratic woman, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who was not censured, had proposed a statewide sexual boycott a la Lysistrata<\/em>, with women refusing favors to men if the bill passed. Rep. Tlaib urged her male colleagues to allow unrestricted access to abortion \u201cfor the love of your wives, your daughters, and mothers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within hours of word of the censure, Rep. Brown hoisted the vagina flag, appearing on MSNBC\u2019s Rachel Maddow Show<\/a><\/em><\/strong> to declare that in the war on women, the battlefield had moved to the dictionary. Asserting that her freedom of speech had been curtailed because she dared to use an anatomical word\u2014a charge denied by the Republican leadership, which noted that the violation of decorum applied to the women\u2019s refusal to be gaveled down, not the words they used\u2014Rep. Brown said, \u201cFrankly, using the word vagina\u2014that is what this legislation is regulating.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the days since, the whole V-word Thing has gone viral, touted by abortion activists as one more example of men\u2019s need to control women and flee from their Icky Bits. Headlines referred to the women\u2019s courage in resisting Michigan\u2019s \u201cdraconian\u201d abortion regulations. Thus today\u2019s protest, and playwright Ensler\u2019s high-flown rhetoric:<\/p>\n

Ensler said she was thrilled to be involved and likened the punishment meted out by the Republican leadership of the state House to \u201cthe Dark Ages.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we ever knew deep in our hearts that the issue about abortion . . . was not really about fetuses and babies, but really men\u2019s terror of women\u2019s sexuality and power, I think it\u2019s fully evidenced here,\u201d Ensler told The Associated Press by phone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh, Eve. Oh, Reps. Tlaib, Brown, and Byrum. Oh, headline writers. Oh, Ezra Klein, substituting for Rachel Maddow the night of Rep. Brown\u2019s appearance, who felt the need to apologize for violating viewers\u2019 decorum\u2014\u201cI apologize, but it\u2019s going to get difficult here\u201d\u2014by referring to the Michigan law\u2019s requirement that physicians issue fetal death certificates in the event of late-term abortions, and \u201cin the case of women pregnant more than 10 weeks, make what amounts to funeral arrangements for the so-called \u2018fetal remains.'\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem here is not the V-word. It\u2019s all the other words used with so little understanding, with such bizarro-world, Humpty Dumpty kraziness. Thus my dictionary definitions, and a little vocabulary review:<\/p>\n

Eve Ensler, abortion is always<\/em> about fetuses and babies. If men (and, I gotta tell you, women) are terrified here, it\u2019s not of women\u2019s sexuality and power\u2014it\u2019s of some<\/em> women\u2019s single-minded need to define themselves solely by the freedom to kill their own offspring (and that of the biological father), at any stage of development, for any reason, answering to no one. You want to talk Dark Ages? I am as adamant a supporter of women\u2019s rights as anybody, but if that\u2019s the definition, count me out.<\/p>\n

Rep. Tlaib, how the love of men for their wives, daughters, and mothers is demonstrated by abortion is beyond me. Utterly. Whatever happened to a box of chocolates and a dozen roses?<\/p>\n

Rep. Byrum, Viagra and abortion are apples and AK-47s. You can only make your sauce-for-the-gander amendment work by adopting the fiction that both of these are vital health services. You can keep shouting it long after the gavel\u2019s banged down, but even you know how stupid that is.<\/p>\n

Ezra Klein, they\u2019re not \u201cso-called\u201d fetal remains. They\u2019re fetal remains (at the most politically correct scientific minimum), and the product of two people\u2019s DNA, and need to be disposed of differently than medical waste from a woman\u2019s body. When a death has occurred, a death certificate is generally required. So sorry that you and your viewers had to have your sensibilities offended by these painful reminders that abortion = death.<\/p>\n

And Rep. Brown, let me \u2018splain somethin. Your vagina is not what is being regulated in Michigan, or anywhere else. What the law does is make it just the tiniest bit more difficult to end the life of an unborn child, just the slightest bit more inconvenient to commit the unusually severe cruelty of killing a child in the womb. It\u2019s late-term abortion that\u2019s draconian, not the Michigan legislation.<\/p>\n

Do I sound angry? I am. Excuse me, because it\u2019s going to get difficult here. Six months ago I was reluctant<\/a><\/strong> to support the March for Life because I believed so much of the anti-abortion rhetoric I heard was anti-woman, anti-sex, anti-equality. And I don\u2019t believe\u2014because of my own experience and that of other women I know\u2014that considering abortion or even going through with one is always an act of casual and conscious evil. But listening to the way women of my party and my background and my age have made abortion the One Value Worth Preserving, I\u2019m sickened. You all have made a prolifer out of me in spite of myself, damn it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to say it was my newly revived Catholic values and a deeper understanding of natural law coming to the fore. But no, I\u2019m not that virtuous. And maybe I\u2019d have stayed as quiet as a censured legislator had this all been about termination in the first 6 weeks, or maintaining access to termination in cases of medical emergency (the way Rep. Bynum wanted to do with vasectomies in her satirical amendment); I\u2019m not proud of those waffle-y bits on my part, but give me time . . . my position is evolving. In the end, sadly, my beef with the Vagina Demagogues is not on moral grounds, but semantic ones. I just can\u2019t stand to see the the decorum of the language violated in such a draconian fashion.<\/p>\n

If you tell me the only way I get to call myself a liberated woman, a Democrat, or somebody who loves my mother is to sign on to abortion without limitation, I\u2019ve got just three words to say: No means No.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 decorum, n. Dignified propriety of behavior, speech, dress, etc. draconian, adj. rigorous; unusually severe or cruel (from the harsh law codes of Draco) vagina, n. (Anatomy) The passage leading from the opening of the vulva to the cervix of the uterus in female mammals The Toronto Star reports on today\u2019s \u201cVaginas Take Back the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1086,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[55,56],"class_list":["post-204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","tag-abortion-2","tag-women"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Vagina Demagogues<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  decorum, n. 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