TEXAS TELL ABORTION CLINICS “SEE YOU IN HELL”, SATANIC TEMPLE SAYS “SEE YOU IN COURT”

Ancient Christians preached that in Hell, women who had abortions would sit in “gore up to their necks.” Meanwhile, the ghosts of unborn children breathed fire on them.

That would make a really metal album cover, but not a good basis for health policy. And yet, many of America’s leaders maitain a second-century attitude about such things.

In about two weeks, Texas will stick women with a law requiring cremation or burial for aborted fetuses. The state already shut down more than half its abortion clinics in the last two years, and now women who manage to find a clinic end up with burial fees of all things to deal with.

Four decades ago the courts spelled out a woman’s agency in constitutional terms. But kooks still insist that their religious convictions count for more than women’s authority over their own organs.

In response, the Satanic Temple says they’ll sue if the state sends any of their members a bill. And I agree; if Texas lawmakers want to have funerals for fetal tissue, they ought to handle it themselves. The fucking weirdos.

Sing along: “Every sperm is sacred…”

But why does America’s religious right wing keep up this pathological obsession with abortion? They claim it’s because of the “sanctity of life,” but I rarely see a church picket an army recruiting station, so they seem selective about which lives interest them.

In the Apocalypse of Peter (the defunct Christian text that laid out the firebreathing baby angel things mentioned above), the blood those damned women soaked in was the runoff from the punishments of other sinners.

The message is clear: Everyone’s sins (murderers included) may be bad, but these women are the worst.

And of course, they were all women. Abortion is distinct as “sins” go in being a woman’s prerogative. Convenient, then, that it’s apparently also the worst of the lot.

You think that’s a coincidence? Because I sure as hell don’t.

Satanism and tells you that your body belongs to you, rather than to a pulpit or a congressman’s desk.

But the kooks and the fundies and the anti-Satanists tell you that you never  get final say on your own body. It’s laws for the uterus now or a lake of blood later.

Originally published December 2016.

“Honestly, if you just find a comfortable position it’s really not so bad.”