I am sad to report that Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me” is still what we would call a timeless classic. Not sad because Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me” is a bad song. It’s a great song. An amazing song. An incredibly powerful song that every woman feels deeply in her bones. The sad part is we still have to sing it. And feel it. The song remains as relevant as ever. And so we continue to belt it loud. And proud. And be filled with unending righteous indignation.
You don't own me
I'm not just one of your many toys
You don't own me
Don't say I can't go with other boys
Yet here we are, in our year 2019, watching as state legislatures pass so-called “Heartbeat Bills” that police women, strip us of our autonomy and take away our right to control our own bodies. These six-week abortion bans are effectively total abortion bans. If you’re late on your period by two weeks, boom, you are probably past six-weeks pregnant. So now you’ve missed your window to make your own decision on how to proceed with your pregnancy, body and life in general.
And don't tell me what to do
Don't tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don't put me on display 'cause
The so-called Governor of Georgia (which should rightfully be Stacey Abrams, but voter suppression is a hell of a drug), just signed the most atrocious fetal heartbeat bill in the country. Earlier Mississippi and Ohio governors signed similar bills, effective this July. And some 16 states across the country have passed or are trying to pass similar laws.
You don't own me
Don't try to change me in any way
You don't own me
Don't tie me down 'cause I'd never stay
Let’s take a peek at that newly passed Georgia law, shall we? Obviously it restrict women from having an abortion after six weeks (again, that means most women wouldn’t even realize they are pregnant until after it’s too late). It also gives the unborn fetus full citizenship rights meaning this lump of underdeveloped cells will be counted as a person for population determination (even though, you know, it isn’t even here yet), and the law provides provisions for alimony, child support and even income tax deductions for fetuses. No, I am not kidding.
I don't tell you what to say
I don't tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That's all I ask of you
But wait, like those terrible late-night infomercials, there’s more! The bill will also criminalize women who get abortions. You heard that right, women who decide to self-terminate after six weeks in Georgia can go to jail for life and even be eligible to the damn death penalty. If a woman seeks an abortion after six weeks from a health care provider she will be party to murder and subject to life in prison. So much for not punishing the woman, pro-lifers. No, I am NOT KIDDING.
I'm young, and I love to be young
I'm free, and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want
To say and do whatever I please
If a woman miscarries because of “her own conduct” she is committing second-degree murder now in Georgia and subject to 10 to 30 years in prison. And prosecutors may interrogate a woman who miscarries to determine if it was because of, again, “her own conduct,” and if they believe it is they could arrest, prosecute and imprison here. NO, I AM NOT KIDDING.
And don't tell me what to do
Oh, don't tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don't put me on display
And, guess what, you can’t even leave the state to obtain an abortion in a state where it is still legal. A woman can be charged with 10 years imprisonment if she does this. Oh, oh, and you also can’t help a woman obtain an abortion in-state or out-of-state after six weeks because you could also be charged with conspiracy. OH MY FUCKING GOD I AM NOT FUCKING KIDDING.
I don't tell you what to say
Oh, don't tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That's all I ask of you
Local elections matter. State elections matter. I know we’re all in a frenzy what with 21,000 Democrats running for president. But this right here? This is why you vote in every election. You vote for school board and county coroner and state assembly. You vote for your representatives and your senators. You vote for governors. You vote because if we don’t they take away our rights. Not slowly, not carefully. But with maximum cruelty and disregard of women as human beings who - unlike their beloved fetus - are actually here and have already been imbued with unalienable rights as citizens of this country. But, you know, not in Georgia.
I'm young, and I love to be young
I'm free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want
To say and do whatever I please
So, we sing. We fight. We protest. We take their asses to court (since, obviously, that’s the objective here - for one of these cases winf its way to Trump’s stolen Supreme Court to overturn Roe V. Wade). But no matter how hard they try and what laws they pass, the GOP doesn’t own women. They certainly don’t care about them. So vote every single last one of them out of office. And we can all be free, and love to be free.
3 comments:
And of course, what these sort of laws invariably lead to:
1. Desperate women resorting to unsafe home methods of abortion, and if the method (unsurprisingly) goes wrong, those same women not going to the doctor until they are so ill their life is at risk. This is a law that kills women, people!
2. Desperate women leaving the state and never returning. Some families broken for no good reason.
3. Women deciding that their best option is to birth a child they don't want, then giving up the child to an orphanage. Flood of babies that nobody wants, likely to grow up unloved and therefore live miserable lives, sometimes criminal.
4. Women raising a child they never wanted, and resenting their own child for life. Being one of those children myself, I'm not ever going to say that I'd rather not exist. But I very definitely rather not have spent my childhood feeling like my very existence was a problem, and the main thing that was required of me was not to make the problem of my existence any worse.
Let's not forget that women get to exist, and they get to carry babies if they so choose, and they also get to choose whether to carry a baby or not. Because whatever the law says, women always have a choice. The law can only make those choices more difficult, not eliminate the choice. Not being pro-choice is like not being pro-gravity: a denial of reality. You can be pro-life if you want about your own womb, not about anybody else's.
So beautifully written for such an ugly law
Wait so if the fetus has “ personhood” does that mean that one can get life insurance for the fetus and collect if one miscarries?
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