Womb For Discussion

by Katherine M. Hikel

Dr. Trixie:

Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term is like forcing her to let someone move into her house, sleep in her bed, and tell her what to wear. To have someone dicatate what she can eat, how long she works, when she can sleep, when and how she can have sex, and how often she must go to the bathroom.

As a New Yorker girlfriend put it: "This is worse than rent control!"

She’s right. Control of the uterus – of women’s behavior – has been a primary obsession of men ever since they seized the reins of civilization, and invented chastity belts, footbinding, female circumcision, the Scarlet Letter, and marriage laws – all to little avail. The uterus does not readily conform to the laws of man. The uterus has a culture and laws of its own.

Back in the days of matriarchal bliss, we had it good. Abortion was an herbal matter, supervised by the wise women, with their tansy and their pennyroyal, who took care of our other medicinal needs as well. Even in medieval times, abortion was considered a non-event, up to the time of quickening.

The rise of the Church, in Europe and the Americas, saw the power of the uterus wrested away from us by men in robes, with landed troops and the entire Spanish Armada behind them. Indeed, throughout the world, the stronger the male gods, the less control women are allowed over their own bodies.

The problem is that the ones making the rules have no concept of the territory. Imagine, then, that the laws regulating the uterus were made by the bearers of uteri.

Nobody likes unwanted pregnancy. The Alan Guttmacher Institute estimates that 60 percent of all pregnancies are unintentional; of those, another 50 percent are unwanted. The Institute fails to mention the number-one cause of unwanted pregnancy: men. Under uterine law, therefore, causing any unwanted pregnancy upon a woman would be a major crime – a felony, say.

Zero tolerance. Dude, do the crime, do the time, pay the fine.

This would send a large portion of the adult male off to corrections, leaving some key vacancies in the policy-making department. Read on.

Because, under uterine law, it is OK to change your mind, a woman can declare a pregnancy unwanted the minute she decides she doesn’t want it; and she can terminate the pregnancy whenever and however she sees fit.

Up till when? you ask. How far does a woman’s jurisdiction extend over her products of conception? Uterine law would say, Forever and for always. In fact, uterine law would hold that the only persons allowed to possess lethal weapons are women, and the only persons they are allowed to point them at are their own children.

This would bring new meaning to the phrase, "I can’t! My mother will kill me!"

I of course see no problem with this, coming from a family who believed that a fetus has no rights till it get its postgraduate degree.

With great blessings come great responsibilities; so, permits would be issued according to rank. For one or two kids, you get a little purse pistol. Up to four, a twin-barrel. Multiple births, a Kalashnikov. Ten or more children, all by different fathers – full nuclear capability. You never know if you might have to discipline them all at once.

As my colleague, child-rearing expert Dr. J tells her children: "I brought you into this world, and I can still take you out of it."

See? Uterine law understands negative consequences.

Of course, under uterine law, all children would be wanted children, well-loved and tended. Top-shelf childcare, schooling, and family therapy would be provided by the peace-and-sustainable-growth-oriented uterine government. Children would grow up exhibiting few of those behaviors that would place their little lives in jeopardy.

And if they did act out, there would be a system of checks and balances, plus the pressures of the marketplace. As in, "Excuse me? Mrs. Bin Ladin? You let your son do what?"

Or, "Here, you can borrow mine. I just had it cleaned."

To a lot of people this makes more sense than shipping them off to war. Of course, under uterine law, war, and not abortion, would be illegal.

Yes, I know, it sounds like utopia. We all realize that it will take a lot more work before a real regime change happens.

No wonder we are still having cramps.