So I’m a teenage girl in Oklahoma and my halfass, Bocephus boyfriend gets me pregnant. It was an accident, and I should have thought twice about letting that fool make a fool of me, telling me he had a condom or that he would withdraw before he came, but it’s too late now. I’m preggers.
My mom and dad say I can move a trailer in next to theirs whether Bocephus marries me or not. They’ll help in any way they can. But I don’t want to marry that idiot. I half think he got me pregnant on purpose. And I definitely don’t know if I’m ready or mature enough to bear or raise a child. I need to finish school. I probably should try to go to college.
I decide to get an abortion, but the state’s new abortion laws treat me like a criminal. The Bocephuses in the Oklahoma state legislature have decided that if I want to terminate my pregnancy, I have to see an ultrasound and listen to a doctor tell me about my fetus’s heart and lungs and limbs. It doesn’t matter whether or not trusting a Bocephus got me into this mess. And if wouldn’t matter if he raped me or was my own brother. I have watch this video and they get to treat me like a criminal.
I’ve thought about it a lot and I think I’ve got my head around it. I think I’ll go through with the abortion and then leave this crappy state, but first I have some questions.
How come Bocephus isn’t being punished for lying to me? And how come he isn’t required by law to sit and watch the ultrasound? He’s the one who was in such a God-awful hurry. And he probably thinks he’s got me right where he wants me. That scarlet letter from that book in English is still only for women. It just stands for a different word.
The Bocephuses in the state legislature may think there needs to be a law like this to make girls like me think twice before getting an abortion, but they’re wrong. I get it. Pro-lifers want a woman to think about what she’s doing, preventing a life or ending a life. They want me to feel a cramp of conscience, but they’re wasting their time. I already do. And I already know that what I’m going to do makes me kind of like a monster in their eyes. But I ain’t the only one.
Before a doctor or pro-lifer decides what I should or shouldn’t do with my body, shouldn’t he or she have to watch a video of an illegal, back-woods abortion? And before the Bocephuses in the state legislature decide I have to watch film of the fetus that’s just barely inside me, shouldn’t they have to watch a video detailing the death and infertility rates caused by black-market abortions?
And if a young, struggling, three-quarters educated girl like me has to be held to some kind of higher standard, why shouldn’t everybody be held to a higher standard?
Why don’t the Bocephuses post pictures of seagulls covered in oil at every gas pump so you can see what you’re doin’ every time you buy gas? Why don’t the Bocephuses put pictures of the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch at the grocery checkout stands so you can see what you’re contributing to every time you carry out your Pringles and Jif in plastic bags?
Do the military people who operate the Predator drones have to see pictures of bloody and maimed Afghan babies before they launch fresh attacks? Why didn’t the American people get the chance to watch young Muslim men being waterboarded over and over before the Bocephuses at Fox News told them it wasn’t torture?
And as we listen to coal industry bosses trying to convince us how safe coal power is, how come nobody shows actual video or pictures of black lung disease? How come smokers don’t have to watch video of what smoking does to their lungs? How come drinkers don’t have to watch video of what drinking does to their livers.
Here in America, we’re all killing or dying in one way or another and it’s our God-given right. But when foolish, unwed Sooner girls try to make decisions concerning their own bodies, that’s a sin. I’d rather have an abortion any day than raise a baby in Oklahoma.