Okay, that tears it.

John Boehner, Republican House Majority leader. Leading the war on women, in his God's name.

This is perhaps the most shocking piece of news I've seen today, or even in recent memory. In the US today the House of Representatives passed H.R. 358 - a bill that allows health industry staff to allow a woman to die rather than perform a life-saving termination. The House Republicans call it the 'Protect Life Bill' without ever pausing to appreciate the black irony of what they're doing.

Elsewhere in the US, this has been referred to as the 'Let Women Die' Bill. You can read about it here.

After the jump, I let out some unholy cathartic rage about this bill. Yes, it is about religion. Yes, the people who supported this bill call themselves Christian. Yes, it was supported by American religious organisations. Don't pretend or infer that this bill wasn't a missile fired from the heart of the God camp right into the rights of women to live and control their reproduction. It is not for any other purpose than the furtherance of ideology.

Update: Alternet ran this piece discussing the sheer hypocrisy of the US Council of Bishops who lobbied heavily for hr 358. And more on the GOP policy of woman-hating here.


I've just about bloody had it. Look Christians, I get it, some of you have beliefs, strong beliefs. I get that. I also get that not all of you think the same, or even agree on any one interpretation of the doctrines of your faith. I get that, but STAY THE BLOODY F#CKING HELL OUT OF PUBLIC POLICY!!

I'm sick of these bloody hardliners pushing an ideology so hard, they're willing to kill over it. Hey, you moderate and progressive Christians, don't agree with them? THEN IT'S HIGH F#CKING TIME YOU STOOD UP AND SAID SO! I really don't care what you believe. Seriously. If you want to ignore the intricate grandeur of evolutionary biology and the sheer bewildering majesty of the cosmos, all in favour of a Jewish Zombie and his invisible ghost father, well... great. That's your prerogative. I just never want to see people's F#CKING LIVES put at risk because of your beliefs, and I never want to see you more agreeable and considerate Christians defending this sort of HORSESH!T as an integral part of your freedom to believe.

It's come down to this. These hardliners don't want to blend in, they don't want to get along with everyone else. They want to lauch a full-scale revolution to drag us back centuries. Are you safe, you moderates? Will they spare you? Not f#cking likely. You either stand with us, defending freedom and the right to a life of dignity, or you stand with those frigging BARBARIANS, that think it is okay to let a woman DIE rather than provide emergency medical aid. ARE THEY MAD? ARE THEY STUPID? Because I know they're completely evil.

Yes, evil. People who support crap like this bill aren't good, they don't have someone's 'best interests' at heart. They're evil. Pure, undiluted evil. No-one, I don't care what their beliefs are, no-one can tell me with sincerity that letting a woman die is good, or holy, or spiritual, or (don't frigging bait me on this) part of their freedom of religion. It's sick control, it's hatred, it's blind ideology before compassion or even the most basic spark of human emotion.

The bill has still got to go through the Senate yet, and President Obama has said he'll veto it (if his courage holds out by then), but you know what? IT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN PUT BEFORE THE HOUSE OF REPS IN THE FIRST F#CKING PLACE!

Is this what you hardline Christians want? You want to push your ideology over and above a human, a living, conscious, sapient person's right to f#cking live? Don't come at me with that 'fetus murder' crap either. We're talking about actual, living-right-now human beings. If the life of the unborn means so damned much to you, where were you when people were fighting for the school funding and jobs and safety net that kid will need when it grows up? Answer: nowhere.You might treat the fetus as sacrosanct, but you treat human beings like crap.

You care so damned much about a frigging fetus, you've lost all sight of real compassion for actual, living people. Where are you going to be if some woman is left to f#cking die on a table, just so she's prevented from having an abortion or emergency termination? Are you going to hold hands with or comfort her grieving family? Are you going to have the sheer cojones to walk up to them and tell them it was 'God's will'? If a kid is born and survives, are YOU going to look after that kid, or just whine that it's another freeloader on welfare? Even if you do take care of the kid, what are you going to say when they look up at you one day, and ask what happened to their real mum? Are you going to look that kid back in the eye and tell that poor little bastard you let it's mother die? Grow up, you sad, pathetic heartless bastards.

I've seriously had just about bloody enough of this lot. Hardline Christians - here's your damned ultimatum. Work with the rest of us. Keep your opinions, but have the f#cking brains to recognise that not everyone either can or wants to cleave to your ridiculous ethos. Because if you can't do that, then f#ck off and make your own little society far, far away from ours. Stop leeching off everything we've all built together and tearing it down to suit your selfish religious tantrums. And you moderates, make your damned minds up. Are you going to let this group of moronic hate-filled psychopaths continue to define your beliefs? No? Then put up or shut up.

Christian hardliners, you are evil. You're not showing goodness, decency or compassion. You are just simply and purely evil. I hope one day you realise how many lives you've ruined to impress an imaginary Saviour.

You've made your bed, now go to damn sleep in it, because this isn't over, not by a long shot. You are on the wrong side of history.