The Supreme Court has recently Roe
V.Wade, a right which has been precedent for almost fifty years. As I
contemplate the bleak outcome—a world where over half of the country will enact
draconian laws which will enable them to prohibit a woman’s right to a safe
abortion, I am filled with grief and rage. Mind you, the focus is NOT on the
physical and mental well-being of the woman, but on the fact that she is
“killing a fetus.” The fact that the fetus is not yet a person is irrelevant.
So is the fact that regardless of the health of the fetus; if the fetus has
physical or genetic disorders; regardless of the health of the woman; if the
woman has been raped or is a victim of incest, she must still carry that baby
to term—because, so they say—it is a life. There is zero compassion, when this
decision is made, about the countless children born, but not desired, to a
world that does not welcome them. Many parents do not have the finances or
resources to support these children, nor do they want to be reminded that this
child is the end result of a horrific rape. Justice Amy Comey Barrett says,
“Leave that child at a police station or a hospital. The infant will find a
home.”
Really? How? In impoverished
communities where parents cannot support their children they already have, how
can they provide a home for yet another? What life is in store for the newborn
child born into poverty when the state and federal government continue to strip
away all safety nets? Without these anchors, no funding for food, the higher
incidence of drug abuse and violence, this is a tragedy in the making. Everyone cares about the seed; no one cares
about the child.
Yet again, the recklessness our
government displays towards children is evident. The refusal to pass sensible
gun-control laws is mind-boggling. An eighteen year-old in Uvalde, Texas, can
purchase an AR-15 with absolutely no background check. Assault weapons can be purchased in many
states without a background check. In many parts of the country, this
translates to mentally-ill individuals purchasing guns, as this eighteen year-old
did, going into a school and shooting nineteen children, as young as nine-years
old. Two teachers also died in this massacre. One week prior to this incident,
an eighteen year-old entered a supermarket in Buffalo and killed ten people of
color, injuring three. So many children and adults are repeatedly and
senselessly killed because assault weapons are in the hands of youthful or
mentally-ill people, often both. And 22% of firearms have been purchased
without ana
background check. Some states require the minimum age to be twenty-one, at least
a little older. And what about limiting gun sales to people who have drug or
alcohol convictions? If the Sandy Hook murders in 2012 by one lone shooter who
killed twenty-six children was not sufficient to pass more restrictive
gun-control legislation, what will be? More lives lost, more children who will
never see their next birthdays, more grieving parents who sent their children
to school in the morning, giving that child its last kiss.
Here lies the irony: it will soon
be unacceptable for a pregnant woman whose health is in jeopardy, one who has
been raped or a victim of incest, to have an abortion, but it is not okay,
according to the law, to check the age or mental status of a person who selects
to purchase an assault weapon. An estimated 18.8 million forearms were sold in
the United States last year. Please do not even bother mentioning Second
Amendment Rights and the rights of a fetus without a voice. It is 2022; The
Constitution was written for a very different world, and one our forefathers could
never envision.
If we truly care about the sanctity
of human life, then it is imperative for our lawmakers to show their arbitrary
rules are not grounded in hypocrisy, but instead in a sincere belief-system
that children’s lives matter. To allow an unwanted or unhealthy child to grow
up in a world without the resources to thrive—not just to survive—is a cruel
and unusual punishment for all the Baby Does who have been cast aside—born and
forgotten. Congress, the Senate, the Courts continue to show their true ugly
colors: it is imperative to birth a child, but not care for it, feed it,
nurture it, and equally acceptable to not restrict guns, so that one day a lone
gunman will mercilessly kill that child, and many others. But those in power
will continue to offer their thoughts and prayers, supported by an absolutely
clueless Supreme Court.
****************************************************************************
Pamela L. Laskin is a lecturer in
the English Department at The City University of New York, where she directs
the Poetry Outreach Center. She is the author of five books of poetry and three
young adult novels, many of which focus on political and social issues. She is
currently at work on a YA novel in verse about the war in Ukraine, with Ukrainian
poet Vasyl Mahkno
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