The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled to sharply curtail access to abortion pills, reversing federal actions that expanded availability. This could restrict the pills from 10 weeks of pregnancy to 7 weeks and require in-person doctor visits. The Biden administration plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. One judge wanted to go further and strip approval of the pills altogether. Access will remain unchanged for now but legal experts say this puts the pills in greater peril. The fate of medication abortion now rests with the Supreme Court, which could take up the case next year ahead of the 2024 election. The ruling highlighted divisions between judges over interpreting an old anti-vice law’s impact on mail delivery of abortion pills.
“Unborn babies are a source of profound joy for those who view them,” he wrote. “Expectant parents eagerly share ultrasound photos with loved ones. Friends and family cheer at the sight of an unborn child. Doctors delight in working with their unborn patients — and experience an aesthetic injury when they are aborted.”
“Aesthetic injury.” I don’t mean to draw attention away from what’s probably a specific legal term, but the word aesthetic here : certain people are so interested in the idea of, the aesthetic of, babies and fetuses as this kind of innocent ideal, totally unconnected to anything difficult or complicated. I just find it really resonant to see the word in this context. Abortion ruins the vibe. Abortions are an aesthetic injury, to a certain type of doctor’s idealized, perfected, imaginary and totally pure vision of pregnancy. Pregnancy is supposed to be about joy and family only, always, and now they’re trying to legislate the messy human reality of womanhood and pregnancy and fetuses and babies to fit this pure aesthetic.
Doctors, of all groups, seem the least likely to harbour unrealistic fantasies about pregnancy, childbirth & the implications of unwanted pregnancies which come to term.
So though it isn’t hard to imagine that providing obstetric care can have joyous aspect which might feel different to helping people who are sick or injured, the statement feels alarmingly divorced from the visceral & emotional realities of human reproduction.
Meantime your words reminded by of an often-quoted comment by a famous US comedian whose name escapes me, to the effect that advocating for the rights of the unborn permits an activist to feel all the passion of fighting for the vulnerable, without ever being confronted by the fruits of their activism whom they dislike as individuals, or whose behaviour they disapprove of, who are ungrateful, who present inconvenient human complexity, who are from groups the anti-abortionist hates, etc… The activist gets to project their own ideal of innocence onto them all.
Though I strongly believe those who are responsible for pushing anti-abortion rhetoric into a major political issue just wish to ensure an increased supply of people who are more vulnerable to exploitation.
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The pussy train for conservatives has had to come to a screeching halt.
