The Year In Your Uterus

By Erin Gloria Ryan | December 27, 2011 | 10:30pm

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In a year of unprecedented What-The-Everloving-Fuckery, arguably little played a more important role in the events of 2011 than the goings-on inside your own personal uterus. Let’s take a nostalgic, squishy walk through your babycave and reflect on all the fascinating adventures it’s had this year.

Anti-Terminator III: Rise of the Zygotes

A strange and terrible group took interest in your uterus this year. They call themselves Personhood USA, and they want to redefine “person” to include all human tissue, starting at the moment of conception. Mass legal acceptance of this scientifically inaccurate principle would make it completely illegal for anyone to have an abortion, receive many forms of IVF, or take the morning after pill on account of the fact that, according to magic, a fetus becomes a grown ass human being at the moment the sperm decides it is. Voters in Mississippi roundly rejected a personhood amendment to their state’s constitution, but that doesn’t mean the Personhood folks are giving up their fight; they’ve introduced similar measures in Virginia, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Georgia, and Nevada.

Crisis Pregnancy Centers in Crisis

Crisis pregnancy centers have always wanted to hold your uterus’s slippery hand during the difficult time of unexpected pregnancy, but it turns out that they’ve been sort of blatantly lying to women who want abortions.
Now, San Francisco has enacted an new ordinance that makes it illegal for them to lie about the services they don’t provide. They’re suing, of course, in a last-ditch effort to preserve their right to do whatever it takes to get those babies borned. Poor crisis pregnancy centers.

Creating Jobs… In Your Uterus

In 2010, American voters unseated incumbent liberals in favor of conservatives who promised fiscal restraint and job creation. Those conservatives promptly used their positions in power to legislate the shit out of your uterus! Almost 1,000 anti-abortion and anti-birth control bits of legislation were introduced at the federal and state levels in 2011, which showed politicians’ true commitment to job-creation… in your uterus. Are you currently pregnant? Then there’s currently one opening for the position of “baby” in your uterus.

Defunding Planned Parenthood For Fun and Profit

Are you poor? Fuck you. Despite the fact that rules that barred taxpayer funding from supporting abortion services already exist, the year kicked off with the new class of job creating politicians gunning for Planned Parenthood. How did they defund Planned Parenthood? With lies, damned lies, and damned dirty lies. Arizona Senator Jon Kyl contributed a whopper earlier this year, when he told his Senate colleagues that abortion is “well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does.” Later, when Planned Parenthood explained that it was actually more like 3%, Kyl said that his testimony was “not intended to be a factual statement.” The House voted to defund the organization and threatened to shut down the whole fucking government, but the Senate voted against the measure. Which means that all that time, energy, debate, and political grandstanding was wasted time on the part of Congressional conservatives. No matter! Onto the states! Texas, Wisconsin, Indiana, North Carolina, Tennessee, and other states defunded or attempted to defund the organization that provides low-cost health care to women this year, on the grounds that the mostly male lawmakers in Washington think taxpayers don’t want to pay for your lazy welfare queen uterus. Your uterus is a gold digger.

Ultrasounds are Ultra-fun!

Pro-life groups still seem convinced that if only pregnant ladies could see a wriggling black and white image on a medical screen, they’d be convinced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term. They were playing ultrasounds everywhere this year— on Capitol Hill, in an Ohio courtroom, where the fetus refused to testify in support of a “heartbeat bill,” and a courtroom challenge of a Texas law that required doctors to describe an ultrasound to women seeking an abortion.

Ban ‘Em All

Since pro-life advocates failed to ban all abortions this year, they’ve tried to nibble away at your uterus’s right to not have a baby in it by banning specific types of abortion or adding waiting periods to certain procedures. They’re trying to ban sex and race-selective abortions, even though no one is getting those here. They’re trying to ban abortions for teenagers who don’t get permission from their parents, and denying teens the right to abortion on the grounds that they’re “too immature” for the procedure. They’re combing through abortion clinic records in Kansas. They’re trying to allow medical professionals to refuse to care for women who need an abortion. They’re trying to close all the clinics in Pennsylvania.

I’ll Get You, My Pretty, And Your Little Pills Too

Great news, uterus! In August, the Department of Health and Human Services declared birth control to be “preventative care” that would be covered fully by the Affordable Care Act when it takes effect in 2014. Rejoice! Just kidding; don’t rejoice. It looks like the Obama administration might cave to Catholic bishops on this issue. Also, despite recommendations that Plan B be available to all women without a prescription, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius decided that she was better than science and that teenagers should need a prescription to get Plan B, for no discernable medical reason besides a prescription-strength slutpanic.

It’s been a wild year for your uterus, and 2012 promises to be even crazier. We’ve got a Presidential election to look forward to, and political candidates love to talk about their agenda for your uterus when they try to win votes. Best festoon the thing in red, white, and blue; they’ve set up camp in your uterus, and they’re not going away any time soon.