(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Fighting Against Gestation Slavery, Forced Birth, the (not) Pro-Life Fascists [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-02 Humans are the only species that tells itself propagandistic fictional stories to psychologically mitigate the inherent suffering built in to biological existence. Our capacity for self-delusion and myth-making is especially evident when you examine standard memes about reproductive rights. Male supremacist society has attempted for millennia to convince women that gestation and childbirth are wonderful, easy, rewarding. Male supremacist ideology goes even further than that though, claiming women are obligated to go through gestation, childbirth, and raising children. Women who refuse to participate in babymaking have long been demonized as witches, lesbians, barren shrews, reprehensibly selfish people who refuse to do their part in the human colonization of this planet. Societies going back thousands of years, and American society today, seek to guilt trip, marginalize, and even viciously persecute or kill women who refuse to go along with the babymaking project. Most women without children have encountered prejudice and even direct insults from people pressuring them to get pregnant. “Why don’t you have kids yet?” is commonly heard, followed by expressions of pity and sometimes contempt if you don’t want to (or can’t) gestate children. The current right-wing war to make The Handmaid’s Tale into non-fiction is a perfect example of this fascism, but many who support women’s body autonomy are missing out on the chance to potently defeat body fascists. This article is the first in a series about abortion, contraceptives, body autonomy, and reproductive rights, and will give plenty of ammo to use against those who believe a woman is primarily a fetus chamber. We must always remember that Nature via evolutionary biology has assigned 99% of biological reproductive burden to human females. All a human male has to do is contribute sperm. After that, the woman’s body does all the hard work as it becomes a manufacturing facility for a new sentient being. Being a human manufacturing facility is not fun. It’s inherently injurious. No matter how “easy” the pregnancy, no matter how many feel-good endorphins swirl around in the pregnant person, there’s nothing easy about having another organism inside you, similar to a tumor or parasite, living off of your circulatory and metabolic systems. As the fetus gets bigger and bigger, the woman’s body goes through cataclysmic changes to accommodate it. Imagine walking around with an 8-10 pound living object inside your abdomen hooked up to you by an internal tube. Imagine your body and mind tasked with your own usual survival needs and other duties, while supporting the fetal manufacturing process. When the fetus gets so big that continued residence in the pregnant woman could kill the pregnant woman, Nature starts the expulsion process that forcefully purges the fetus via an opening that is nowhere near big enough. In some cases, a surgeon cuts the woman open and removes the baby. Pregnancy itself, along with natural or Caesarian birth, causes severe pain, acute and sometimes permanent injury to tissue and the musculoskeletal system, and can be fatal. Maternal injury and death during gestation and childbirth are common features of female experience even in the most advanced countries, with injuries and fatality highest amongst disenfranchised groups. In part, this is because evolutionary biology is NOT an intelligent, kind “creator.” Human gestation and birth are complex, imperfect processes produced by natural selection, and they take an inordinate, unavoidable toll on women. It’s called gestation slavery because women are forced by Nature to endure gestation and childbirth if our species is to continue on this planet. Women, like men, want to have orgasms. But Nature stipulates that a woman who wants orgasms via intercourse with a male risks pregnancy. The male risks nothing. Indeed, the lifetime female human reproductive burden, which includes monthly menstruation starting at puberty, hormonal swings, breast feeding, and menopause, harms only women. Men have it ridiculously easy when it comes to biologically propagating our species. Women do all the hard work—gestating and birthing the child, breastfeeding—that men cannot do. And that’s just one of many reasons men have no legitimate right to tell women what to do with their wombs, vaginas, sexual choices. Unfortunately, an arrogant, cruel group of men and women are not just trying to tell women what to do with their own bodies…they’re using political, judicial, and vigilante tactics to attack abortion, contraceptives, reproductive rights services, body autonomy education, women’s health care. They make laws interfering with patient-doctor relationships, put women at greater risk of injury and fatality, force women and even little girls to carry and birth fetuses fathered by rapists and incest criminals. They constantly menace reproductive rights clinics, hurling vicious insults, spitting on women and medical staff, also using arson, bombings, and physical threats, including murdering abortion doctors. This falsely-named “pro-life” movement is even trying to outlaw contraceptives, which in most cases if properly used will negate the need for abortion. Many conservative states have outlawed or severely restricted abortion rights, forcing women to desperately seek travel to other states. Those same anti-women states are trying to make it illegal for women to travel to seek abortion, and trying to ban access to abortion medication. Gestation slavery has always been hardest on the most disenfranchised women, especially women of color and impoverished women who have a harder time affording travel hundreds or thousands of miles to a reproductive freedom state. They’re forced to bear children they do not want. When women are forced to bear children, it negatively impacts their physical and emotional health and chances for socioeconomic success, personal fulfillment, and happiness. Indeed, gestation slavery fomented by anti-abortion fascists is a way to keep women “in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, where they belong.” Ironically, the same body fascists who want to force women into pregnancy and childbirth oppose providing women with sufficient or any resources, medical care, and support. They also oppose “welfare” programs that help women and children. There are many serious issues facing us as a species, but the gestation slavery ideology that seeks to tell women what to do with their own bodies is at the top of the list when it comes to fighting back. Gestation slavery is part of a continuum that involves all forms of slavery. Prisoners in American prisons are subjected to legalized slavery, specifically authorized by the 13th amendment to the constitution. Many Republicans believe there is no such thing as “rape” in marriage—a man has the “right” to sex and his wife has no right to refuse him. SCOTUS is polluted by gestation slavery theocrats like Amy Coney Barrett, who was a member of a cult that called its female members “handmaids.” Overturn of Roe V. Wade and the failure of Congress to quickly pass legislation guaranteeing the right to abortion, contraceptives and body autonomy indicates we’ll see even more gestation slavery unless we fight back hard and effectively right now. Please look for the follow-up articles in this series, because we are going to totally demolish all the talking points the anti-women movement uses to push its abortion and contraceptive bans. There’s ZERO legitimate, ethics-based opposition to abortion and contraceptives, and we all need to be able to forcefully explain that to those who seek to add to women’s burdens and suffering. 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