It’s really weird that we get this story about a completely unlikeable female abuser who portrayed herself as a victim at the time when abortion, framed as the only choice anyone could make regarding their body autonomy, is being threatened. But we all know that it is larger than that, and the “populist right” with their shit eating grins know that too. And anyone with a brain knew how the right would position itself after the “blue” assault on bodily integrity became too big of an embarrassment to ignore any longer.

As someone who has always supported what is called “choice”, I’ve often said that the way to ensure that there are fewer abortions is to maintain their legality, safety, and accessibility. In such a world, poor, abused, and uneducated women would have more opportunities for self determination; they no longer have to fall into those categories at all and can exert more control over their reproductive capabilities. Even in my adolescence during the 90s, people did not want to discuss how the menstrual cycle works, as if it was taboo. Twenty years later, that has all but disappeared. We have apps for that now, and plan B is as easy as walking to the pharmacy when a condom breaks. There’s really not much shame left, and for all the faults of digitization, more information is available for all women to make smarter decisions and never have to “choose”, sans harmful and damaging hormonal pharmaceuticals as well.

Of course there has been backlash. There are too many examples to go into in this post. But one of the most recent and infuriating is that of Hollywood starlets telling us how violent, abnormal periods are just a whimsical part of womanhood, and you really shouldn’t freak out too much if you experience menorrhagia after being injected with an experimental toxin to prevent you from getting a virus that if contracted can throw off your cycle that’s surely so sensitive it can also be skewed by a wayward breeze. Huh? Of course, this was one of those times it was not acceptable to “believe women” since Pfizer said so. I cannot recall one instance of bleeding to the point of delirium for weeks on end and experiencing stabbing pains in my uterus from catching a cold and never has any other woman I’ve ever known talked about such a freak occurrence. That would be quite startling, but seeing as how it’s a bald faced lie, I’m not going to worry about it, and neither should any other woman on earth.

I hate to say this, but there is some logic to the rightoid hold on this spectacle, and it couldn’t be so successful without a kernel of truth. The democrat-voting women I’ve had the displeasure of knowing did not have any words of concern for muzzled children on the verge of suicide for the last two years, nor did they bat an eye at the mass firing of other women who made the incorrect “choice” in not getting injected to keep their jobs both near and far. Yet somehow they emerged with a level-headed and morally correct stance on the ability to flush a fetus at will in the last week that benefits all women and their body autonomy. Huh?

Abortion is a violent act whether it is “natural” or chosen, and too many who support it as a legitimate medical procedure have ignored that fact for too long. Presently, they have their fingers in their ears when any woman experiencing spontaneous abortion post-injection speaks up. In any case, glossing over it has stoked the bloodlust in the rightist movement that has convinced itself and the so-called “politically homeless” and naive that they alone are “the resistance”. It is a fact that has smoldered like a hot coal that left alone may have died out, but now that the kindling has been added and the fledging flames fanned, it is set to blaze and smoke out the thin line of reasonable dialog that needs to be happening with regard to bodily integrity for everyone whether they can get pregnant or not. Framing this is as red or blue is evidence of impaired thinking from the myriad of psyops that have thrown people, even those who have resisted much of the COVID propaganda, into uncomfortable twilight zones of facing real problems and who our real enemies are. The overload has made red versus blue a comforting security blanket yet again.

No matter the opinion on those who disagree with abortion, it is a legitimate medical procedure that has a necessary place in routine surgical interventions needed for women’s healthcare. However, it should be obvious that cutting into the body in any form is violence enacted on the cells that create and maintain the larger organism, that being our wonderfully complex bodies as humans. And if there is anything that the COVID apocalypse has revealed, it’s the number of so-called routine surgeries performed in this country that may not be medically necessary at all if the underlying causes are treated and the threat they pose to any patient put under the knife is truly realized. For the right, imaginary lives matter more than those who are here now and in desperate need of what they call “irresponsible social spending” or whatever the latest catchphrase is. Probably “taking our country back from Chinese influence” or something.

Currently, Amber Heard is the perfect face for this deceit and feigned concern from “both sides” actually. At the time of her divorce settlement from the allegedly abusive Johnny Depp, she pledged millions to support charities that in theory benefit women and children. She was named as an “ambassador” spokesperson for the abused while failing at following through with her pledges. Her words do not stand up in court, and she is doing her best to confuse fact finders with unnecessary detail to distract from how empty her accusations really are. It appears that once she didn’t see a penny for her own gain from the initial settlement payment Depp forwarded to the ACLU as she had promised to do herself, Bezos, ACLU lawyers, and Vanguard helped her craft a plea as a supposed battered woman in one of the most influential newspapers of our time. Her terrible acting fuels a rightist reaction to supposedly conniving women everywhere who probably just all want to marry older rich men, rob them of their money, and indiscriminately abort fetuses along the way. By the same token, liberals bask in celebrity worship and ignoring the cries and pleas from working women whose lives have been crushed by coronafascism.

It is a disgusting situation all around, and the need for every working person to take back the control of their own bodies is something that needed to happen yesterday. I’m sick of saying this little phrase, that something should have been settled in the past already, but the urgency of now seems to be something that is written off as quickly as a rear-view mirror glance. It’s utterly bizarre to place these issues in the past and to never address the reality of what abortion entails and who benefits in a world that is forcing aborted fetal cell lines into living beings for profit and other agendas we don’t even know the full extent of yet. It has also been quite bewildering to see COVID critics embrace moral certitude about what others should do with their bodies to fit into their resistance movement.

Ignoring these basic facts is not sticking it to anyone, or doing anything by pointing out the hypocrisy involved, but it will ensure that the puppet masters of both the red and blue marionettes are able to colonize every last inch of our bodies. I know it’s cliche to damn both sides of the same coin, but it’s true, and it bears repeating until the rational center is brought back among those who have valiantly resisted the most frightening and all consuming propaganda campaign in all of human history, no matter the personal branding and identifiers they have picked up along the way and settled with before. Because it is certainly not over, and we do not have the time now to deal with a “better than nothing” ruling for the next 50 years before it is decided for us who gets to procreate with whom and when. It is freedom or slavery, and the war extends way past abortion on demand.