[Content Note: War on agency; dehumanization.]
The Missouri state legislature is considering a bill that would force pregnant people to wait three days before being allowed to get an abortion. The sponsor of the proposed legislation, Republican state representative Chuck Gatschenberger, explained his rationale for introducing the bill thus:
Even when I buy a new vehicle — this is my experience — I don't go right in there and say, I want to buy that vehicle, and, you know, leave with it. I have to look at it, get information about it, maybe drive it, check prices. There's lots of things I do going into a decision — whether that's a car, whether that's a house, whether that's any major decision that I make in my life. Even carpeting. You know, I was just considering getting carpeting in my house. That process probably took a month… I wanted to be as informed as possible, and that's what this bill is, having them get as much information as possible.Leaving aside the fact that "Studies have found nearly 90 percent of women are 'highly confident' about their choice to end a pregnancy before ever approaching a doctor, and mandatory waiting periods don't do anything to sway them," making Gatschenberger's stated reason for introducing legislation to impede access to abortion is demonstrable bullshit, this is incredibly dehumanizing rhetoric. Pregnant people aren't making decorating or purchasing decisions.
Anti-choicers constantly accuse abortion-seeking people of treating their decision frivolously, but, like so many any things, it's just so much conservative projection. They simultaneously want abortion to mean everything when they're comparing it to murder, and to mean nothing when they're creating barriers to access.
And never, ever, do they acknowledge that people who get abortions have different reactions to them. Sometimes it's a big decision; sometimes it's not. Neither one is the wrong or right way to feel about it.
Even if this weren't unjustifiable, dehumanizing, reductionist claptrap, who gives a fuck if Rep. Gatschenberger needs lots of time to make major decisions in his life. Not everyone has the same needs.
I am intractably resistant to the idea that any legislation should ever be drawn on the assumption that everyone has the same needs as its architect, but never does that seem more objectionable when it's abortion legislation written by a person who will never need an abortion.
