Amanda I think nails it with her post today, Women are like sheep: cuddly, easily led:

Lopez’s assumption that girls won’t talk to their parents unless it’s required by law speaks volumes about her beliefs that women are just dumb ass sheep who can’t make the proper decision unless pushed in the right direction. But of course, the assumption is that once pushed, said women will comply without resistance, so there’s no reason not to have such a law because there will be no negative side effects, like girls getting back alley abortions or girls who have good reasons not to tell their parents. (Such as Daddy will beat her.) Women are sheep–push ‘em, they go in the right direction, and all women have exactly the same needs.

Knowing that conservatives have such a low view of women’s agency is key to understanding the video that Digby posted where various protesters were asked what the punishment should be for women who obtain illegal abortions. Most of them are absolutely floored at the very idea that women’s decisions should be examined at all–to them, only the doctor who performed it is morally accountable because he had the job to direct the amoral sheep-like woman towards the “correct� decision of not aborting and he fell down on his job of providing guidance. That women are willful, that they might decide they want to terminate even in the face of everyone telling them to have the baby, just doesn’t even register.

That said, I do think there’s two views on the right of women’s morality, one that casts women as evil sluts who must be controlled at all costs and one that casts women as dumb sheep that need just a little guidance to get it “right�.

We've seen manifestations of both here, from MRA-types who, in their paranoid fantasy worlds, seem convinced that we evil feminists are secretly running the world -- you know, like your worst nightmare Illuminati -- and forced pregnancy is only our just due; and the Pollyannas, who believe that all you have to is outlaw something to make it go away. (It worked really well with drugs, right? And Prohibition was a thrilling success!)

I expect the Pollyannas are in for a rude awakening. Many of their supporters are, too, because, as any clinic worker will tell you, a significant percentage of women who abort pregnancies are staunchly "pro-life" -- "But this is an exception!" Women have used what lore they had to control their own bodies to what extent possible for thousands of years, and modern-day abortion prohibitions aren't going to stop that.

The punishment fantasists, though, will never be appeased. Bullies and abusers never are. My suspicion is that those folks secretly want women to die in illegal abortions. Such is their vision of "life."

So between malice and naïveté, the right-wing has quite a political force mounted against women. Count this as year one of the Modern Dark Ages.

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