Patty MacDonell and POOR Magazine writer Thornton Kimes worked together, in the 1980's in the Washington, DC homelessness and poverty activism and action organization, The Community For Creative Non-Violence, and in Des Moines, Iowa in a Catholic Worker-ish intentional community called The Kindred Community--doing the same stuff on a smaller scale. Thornton's raising hell with POOR Magazine, Patty MacDonell is still making trouble on the east coast. Patty's article is about something POOR Magazine's poverty skolah superbaby mamaz know well, the never-ending attack on women in America.
"They tried to pass a law like that here in Virginia where any woman who miscarried would be required to contact the police. I emailed the legislator who wrote the law and asked, 'Would I be required to call the police when the bleeding began at the stage where I wasn't sure that I miscarried, while on bed rest? Or would I get to wait to contact the police after I got the devastating news?' He responded angrily indicating that all us angry women who had miscarried and were emailing him misunderstood what he was trying to do."
--Patty MacDonell, commenting on her note in a facebook conversation
When I was 11 or 12 I got obsessed with Henry VIII and his six wives. Henry rejected his first two wives because they kept having miscarriages, still births, and their only living births were daughters and Henry wanted a son. I remember a show on PBS where Henry's first wife had a stillbirth and Henry had a temper tantrum and put all the blame on her. After the stillbirth she understood that her life was in danger. At that age I understood how terrible it was to blame a woman for losing her baby.
Currently, lawmakers in Georgia want to turn abortion into legal murder and want to ensure that all miscarriages are subject to police investigation. What this means is that all women who suffer the trauma of miscarriages will then be subject to criminal, murder investigations.
As abortion is legal in the United states, the purpose of the creation of state laws like this is to go into effect if Roe v. Wade is overturned. Women who lose the babies they want should be comforted rather than prosecuted. This law and others that involve the right of hospital workers to refuse to give an abortion that would save a woman's life, as well as the attempt to defund Planned Parenthood life-saving and abortion prevention services, are proof that the so called "pro-life" movement is indeed a misogynistic, anti-woman movement. It's a throwback to the 16th century, similar to Henry VIII's use of women as decorative, disposable birth machines.
I have a daughter. This anti-woman, forced-birth movement could endanger her well-being and her life. There isn't a lot I wouldn't do to stop this from happening. Compassionate people, particularly those with daughters, should not ignore this hateful, hypocritical, anti-life movement.