The beginning of the end of women's sovereignty over their own bodies

And so the battle begins.

I wonder just how many young women who are going to be affected by the South Dakota abortion ban, and similar legislation underway in other states, really care.

I've been out there fighting this battle for thirty years, even while I was the beneficiary of the immediate post-Roe era, when there were free contraceptive clinics in college towns and no one had to "go away to stay with grandma for a while" anymore. Because I always know that the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy was only going to remain as long as people remained vigilant.

In 2004, only 52% of women between the ages of 18 and 24 bothered to vote. If even half of the remaining 48% had bothered to show up and vote for their own sovereignty by voting for John Kerry, the outcome of the election would have been very different.

They didn't, and so today we have the beginning of the end of the idea that women in America are human beings. In George W. Bush's America, women are either virtuous virgins or whores. That's the dichotomy.

Unfortunately, I have to get ready to go to work, so I don't have time to do this topic justice -- and frankly, after 30 years, I'm just plain tired -- tired of having to explain to people why this is important, tired of fighting this battle over and over and over again, tired of a society in which a guy like Bill Napoli can say:

"A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life."

...isn't met with universal outrage. I don't know how many of you have heard the sound clip from this News Hour interview, but the sheer gusto with which Napoli describes this mythical rape of this virtuous virgin may be the most disconcerting thing I've heard so far this year. Napoli's implication is that if you are a virtuous married woman, the fact that you have had sex, even with your husband, means that there is no such thing as rape for you. Any woman who has ever had sex, even within marriage, is by definition a whore and if she is raped, it's her just punishment for not being a virgin.

Just in case you had any remaining delusions that the pro-life movement was about babies and about human life and NOT about punishing women. Just in case you had any remaining illusions that the pro-life movement is NOT about men who are terrified of their own urges and therefore project their self-loathing onto women.

And why is it that the rapist-fathered offspring of that virtuous virgin has no right to life, but the offspring of the married slut does? Napoli is clearly a pervert, and what he gave us in that interview was a glimpse inside a profoundly disturbed mind. Digby has more here.

Fortunately, there are others more directly affected by what's happening with abortion who HAVE taken up the mantle of this fight. Amanda has a good round-up of bloggers weighing in here, and more here, here, and here.