Ever since I first heard about it yesterday morning, and now that the Senate and House both have passed it, I've been trying to wrap my mind around the
Carry Father-Daughter Pregnancies To Term Act - erm, I mean, the
Child Custody Protection Act.
I just figured it out:
TEENAGE GIRLS ARE TERRORISTS!!!
(Also available at My Left Wing)
Of
course! That explains it! Our wise Republican legislators have understood, far better than we mere citizens ever could, that
raising a teenage girl is among
The Most Terrifying Things In The World, and have acted with temperance and sagacity to
PROTECT US from that
TERROR.
Imagine! Thousands of teenage girls, mixing in among the civilian population like a veritable Hip-Hop Hezbollah, infiltrating from state to state across this great nation of ours, helped by complicit "grandparents" or "clergy" MURDERING thousands, maybe MILLIONS, of blastocysts, while stealthily remaining completely under the radar!!!
Let me make sure you understand:
!!!!!!!!
Did I mention:
TERRORISTS!!
BOO!
All this time, we have been lulled into a false sense of security, while THE VERY FUTURE OF OUR DEMOCRACY, OF OUR WAY OF LIFE, IS AT STAKE!! We MUST ACT TO PROTECT OURSELVES AND OUR EMBRYOES FROM THOSE GRANDPARENTS AND CLERGY WHO WOULD ENABLE THIS TERRORISTIC ACTIVITY!!!
You're either with the Grandparents, or you're with Us. Simple as that.
I am only surprised that it took this long for our lawmakers to respond, and that their response was so calm and measured IN THE FACE OF THIS IMMINENT THREAT.
Civil liberties? HA! You can't have any civil liberties when your blastocysts are DEAD!!
So now I, as the father of two teenage girls, can sleep better at night, knowing that My Government will be watching the Terrorists Under My Roof. No longer will I have to be responsible for controlling their uteri - for, until this bill was passed, I was, indeed responsible to control them - but I now can rest easy knowing that that oversight is in the capable hands of local law enforcement. The same way they've made the world safe from terrorism, they've made parents' lives safe from teenagers' bad judgment.
.
.
But seriously, folks -
Republicans have successfully used Fear of Uncertainty to sell all kinds of noisome crap, from the PATRIOT Act to illegal signing statements to illegal NSA spying to illegal imprisonment and torture to illegal war, and beyond. The Orwellian-ly titled "Child Custody Protection Act" is just one more in a long line of fear-inspired medieval measures designed to assuage the tremulous authoritarian-worshipping sectors of the populace who would love nothing better than to believe that everything that is uncertain in their universe can be CONTROLLED through intimidation and coercion.
Well, guess what - here's a news flash:
RAISING TEENAGE GIRLS IS FULL OF UNCERTAINTY.
And no matter how much you might like to, you can't legislate, police, coerce, threaten or browbeat that fact out of existence. Not only can you not legislate morality - whatever that means - you can't legislate teenagers' being responsible.
So suck it up and take some responsibility yourself, as a parent.
If my relationship with my teenage daughters ever gets to the point where I have to bring in law enforcement to get them to do something that, in a perfect world, they should do of their own volition, then that relationship is Fucked Up Beyond All Repair.
It's not the state's job to raise your children. But it IS the state's job to protect those children whose parents are abusing them. And this medieval horror of a bill, this unconscionable piece of shit that treats teenage girls like chattel, does exactly the opposite: It protects those who rape underage girls.
Let me say that again:
THIS BILL PROTECTS THOSE WHO RAPE UNDERAGE GIRLS.
Did I mention
THIS BILL PROTECTS THOSE WHO RAPE UNDERAGE GIRLS.
This is very important:
THIS BILL PROTECTS THOSE WHO RAPE UNDERAGE GIRLS.
I believe in the possibility of redemption, so I am not going to say that those who voted for this will rot in Hell, but they'd better start getting right, right away.
Here's the language from the bill:
`Sec. 2431. Transportation of minors in circumvention of certain laws relating to abortion
`(a) Offense-
`(1) GENERALLY- Except as provided in subsection (b), whoever knowingly transports a minor across a State line, with the intent that such minor obtain an abortion, and thereby in fact abridges the right of a parent under a law requiring parental involvement in a minor's abortion decision, in force in the State where the minor resides, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.
Here's some language from another Act, this one a bit older:
Section 6
[W]hen a person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the United States, has heretofore or shall hereafter escape into another State or Territory of the United States, the person or persons to whom such service or labor may be due . . . may pursue and reclaim such fugitive person . . . by seizing and arresting such fugitive . . . [and shall be authorized] to use such reasonable force and restraint as may be necessary, under the circumstances of the case, to take and remove such fugitive person back to the State or Territory whence he or she may have escaped as aforesaid. In no trial or hearing under this act shall the testimony of such alleged fugitive be admitted in evidence [snip]
Section 7
And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct, hinder, or prevent such claimant, his agent or attorney, or any person or persons lawfully assisting him, her, or them, from arresting such a fugitive from service or labor . . . shall, for either of said offences, be subject to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months [snip]
The Fugitive Slave Act was the last previous federal law in the U.S. that treated a human being as chattel. Teenage - and pre-teenage! - girls are not chattel. You can't possibly "control" them, except in the most repressive, medieval way. To think otherwise is, well, medieval.
In a letter written to the Senate Judiciary Committee way back in June 2004 regarding S. 403, Senator Patrick Leahey said it very well (emphases added):
I can think of only one other instance in which the Federal Government applied its resources to enforce one State's policy, absent a State judgment or charge, against the residents of that State even when the resident found refuge in another State. I refer to the fugitive slave laws before the Civil War. None of us -- and certainly not the sponsors of this legislation -- would ever condone slavery. Yet unfortunately, that is the only legislative precedent we have for a bill that would use federal law to enforce a particular State's laws against people wherever those people may travel.
The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution outlawed slavery and repealed article IV, section 2, paragraph 3 of the Constitution, which authorized return of runaway slaves to their owners. That authority and the implementing laws enacted by Congress, such as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, enabled slave owners to reclaim slaves who managed to escape to free States or territories.
In fact, the notorious Dred Scott decision relied on this since-repealed constitutional provision to decide that slaves were not citizens of the United States entitled to the privileges and immunities granted to the white citizens of each State. This is why Dred Scott, born a slave, was deemed by the Supreme Court to continue to be a slave, even when he traveled to a "free" territory that prohibited slavery.
In 1858, Abraham Lincoln, who was at the time running for the U.S. Senate, criticized the Dred Scott decision, "because it tends to nationalize slavery." Indeed, the dissenting opinion in Dred Scott, made plain that "the principle laid down [in the opinion] will enable the people of a slave state to introduce slavery into a free State ... and by returning the slave to the State whence he was brought, by force or otherwise, the status of slavery attaches, and protects the rights of the master, and defies the sovereignty of the free State."
And so too with S. 851, which tends to nationalize select State laws, even in those States that have declined to adopt such strict policies. Fugitive slave laws are no model to emulate with respect to our daughters and granddaughters.
Make no mistake: Despite the sponsors' contention that this bill does not attempt to regulate any purely intrastate activities related to the procurement of abortion services, the effect of this bill would be to impose the policies of certain States on the residents of the remaining ones.
That's the legal, constitutional argument.
The more personal, practical argument is this:
[W]hile I know as a father that most parents hope their children would turn to them in times of crisis, no law will make that happen. No law will force a young pregnant woman to talk to her parents when she is too frightened or too embarrassed to do so. This bill will not encourage a young woman to involve her parents in a decision to have an abortion. It does not increase the perception of choices for such young women. Rather it is likely to drive young women who are afraid to seek help from their families away from their families and greatly increase the dangers they face from an unwanted pregnancy. For these reasons, I oppose this bill. [emphases added]
When I was younger, I played a team sport. We had an expression that summed up the attitude of those team members who played defense in a way that only served their interests, and didn't help the team as a whole:
"I've got my man - FUCK YOU!"
Those who support S. 403 because they (erroneously) believe that it will serve their selfish interests by giving them one more tool to help "control" their daughters are deluded on two levels: First, if you think you're "controlling" your teenage daughter because some law says she has to inform you if she is thinking about having an abortion, figure it out: You haven't "controlled" her - SHE'S PREGNANT, YOU IDIOT!
Second: Think, please, just for a moment about all the girls who aren't your daughter, who don't have a father or mother who cares about them, and with whom they have at least the possibility of having a safe, honest conversation about the most important decision in their young life. Think about those many, many girls for whom such a possibility is only a cruel dream, whose life is a nightmare of proportions you can't even imagine. For the sake of some deluded idea of state-imposed "control" of your daughter, are you willing to take away the one mechanism of hope that those girls have?
If your answer is "yes," I hope you can sleep with yourself at night.
The vote is over. But the battle is not.
I just wish I'd known about this fucked-up travesty of a freak show earlier.