This article has me sufficiently outraged. I probably can't add much to it beyond the good job Dahlia Lithwick did. But I wanted to touch on one thing that stuck out to me:
Isn't every decision a lifestyle choice and thus a matter of convenience. For Mr. Gilbert to go to the doctor for a routine checkup or because he has a nasty cough is no different a lifestyle choice than a woman going to the doctor for an abortion. Both matters are ones of lifestyle convenience, though with varying degrees of impact on said lifestyle.
So if we are writing laws that force people to do things why not write one that forces Mr. Gilbert to get a prostrate exam every time he wants to masturbate or have sex? That way he could be given all the proper information regarding his sexual fertility and how likely it is he could impregnate someone. And while we're at it, we might as well do a full physical checkup so as to assess where he is fit to raise a child. Maybe we can do some exploratory surgery in order to check for cancer. After all, according to these lawmakers in Virginia, if you decide to have sex you are consenting to letting the gov't poke around in your body.
During the floor debate on Tuesday, Del. C. Todd Gilbert announced that “in the vast majority of these cases, these [abortions] are matters of lifestyle convenience.” (He has since apologized.) Virginia Democrat Del. David Englin, who opposes the bill, has said Gilbert’s statement “is in line with previous Republican comments on the issue,” recalling one conversation with a GOP lawmaker who told him that women had already made the decision to be "vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant." (I confirmed with Englin that this quote was accurate.)*
Isn't every decision a lifestyle choice and thus a matter of convenience. For Mr. Gilbert to go to the doctor for a routine checkup or because he has a nasty cough is no different a lifestyle choice than a woman going to the doctor for an abortion. Both matters are ones of lifestyle convenience, though with varying degrees of impact on said lifestyle.
So if we are writing laws that force people to do things why not write one that forces Mr. Gilbert to get a prostrate exam every time he wants to masturbate or have sex? That way he could be given all the proper information regarding his sexual fertility and how likely it is he could impregnate someone. And while we're at it, we might as well do a full physical checkup so as to assess where he is fit to raise a child. Maybe we can do some exploratory surgery in order to check for cancer. After all, according to these lawmakers in Virginia, if you decide to have sex you are consenting to letting the gov't poke around in your body.
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