Would I be unreasonable to dress dd as a uterus?

[BigOldFanny]

The Republican National Convention is going to be held very close to where I live... I'm thinking of going to protest and dressing up dd as a model of the female reproductive system... I'm slightly concerned about there being trouble there though and about using her when she's too young to have an opinion on anything herself (even though this will affect her long term). Is it wrong?

I think it's a good idea OP, wish I was there to protest along with you.

For those of you who haven't seen this yet, the republican platform (policies) were voted on this morning and will swing into action should they win the election.

thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/22/723241/gop-approves-most-conservative-platform-in-modern-history/?mobile=nc

Please note where it states that there will be no access to abortion for victims of rape or incest, that some forms of contraception will be made illegal (and that same sex marriages will be outlawed).

Ach, crap linky.

Here thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/22/723241/gop-approves-most-conservative-platform-in-modern-history/?mobile=nc

Love the idea of you protesting at the RNC. If it was near me I would be tempted to protest too. I think I'd dress DS up as a fertilized ovum!

And that would be easy because then he wouldn't need a costume since fertilized ova are now people according to Paul Ryan and all the other prominent Republicans who sponsored the Personhood Bill.

These misogynist feckers need to be put in their box and shoved back across the line to only talk on issues that they are informed on. Any party that has members who believe that rape only leads to pregnancy if it's not really rape just need to stop talking about birth control, abortion, rape and all other women's issues because they have signed away any right to be taken seriously.

Watching Rachel Maddow at the moment... a bit of sanity in a crazy world!

Thanks for the link Tapir. Scary stuff.

Imagine being raped by a family member, having to carry the child to term, having to raise that child, having to deal with the fallout from that. Shit, you will probably have to pay for the privilege of giving birth to it because there isn't an NHS. You wouldn't have had access to contraception or the morning after pill. This is what the GOP want.

I live in Canada and I look South in horror. It amazes me because I have always really liked and respected the Americans I have met of course I met a lot of them out of the States so they were the minority with passports.

The weird irony of all this for me is that I grew up in Ireland where abortion and contraception were both illegal (abortion still is). There was a huge controversy when I was young, too young to understand most of it, about 'the X case', where a 14 year old girl was raped and wanted to be granted the right to an abortion due to suicide risk. It caused a huge debate at the time as it was a major challenge to the status quo on abortion and the Catholic hierarchy's stranglehold on how society viewed it.

Now here I am, in 2012, living in the USA, the most advanced, powerful country in the world and they are trying to turn their country into what Ireland was 50 years ago, a god-obsesssed, anti-feminst country run by misogynists.

Hopefully there are enough sane Americans out there to stop them.

I've been following the slow descruction of the republicans for a while; I have a large number of US/Canadian friends on FB, and this is all they've been talking about for quite some time.

With the latest stuff that the GOP have produced, I'm like Napa, hoping that this is a step too far, and sanity and good sense will prevail.

I have my doubts though.

BTW did anyone see the thing about the GOP in Texas rejecting the teaching of critical thinking skills? It would certainly explain a lot.

B.O.F - I hope you have a great time (if you do go). I once took part in a protest in SLC against Orrin Hatch

destruction (it's late)

Definitely go and protest, perhaps if the cuterus idea is too much are there some pro-choice slogans from the Rally to Restore Sanity you could use instead?

Once again I've been watching with horror what is happening in the US - it's terrifying stuff. Hadn't seen the Critical Thinking thing but am hardly surprised given that Akin or to give him his full name 'That misogynist prick Akin' sits on the Science Committee - the GOP are pretty much proving that dinosaurs still exist today, never mind were wandering about 4,000 years ago planting fossils to dupe us all!

As an aside, does anyone know a way I can donate to Emily's List as a UK citizen? I was looking at their website the other day when they were having a drive to support Claire McAskill who is standing against Aiken but I suspect as it's a PAC there's no way of giving them money from over here...

I've been mulling this over...

I think I agree - if there's a potential for ugly behaviour, you maybe don't want your daughter to be targeted because she's a cuterus, or attached to you with an umbilical cord...

...but, what if there was a whole army of cuteruses/cuterii? What if you got together enough women dressed as vaginas to make a really big visual statement? Wouldn't that be an AMAHAAZING image on the front page of the Washington Post?

How frightening would something like this be? protect life act

If I go through with it should dd's sighn say "See, we're not so scary" ?

instead of a costume perhaps she could hold this

I reckon you could adapt a haggis costume into a uterus costume with a bit of imagination hahaha

Suddenly realsied you meant a real haggis from the butchers as opposed to the nonsense you see in the tourist shops, as I was picturing a tartan womb!

Frightening isn't the word; they're playing god with our bodies and lives and believe that it's the right thing to do.

I for one am very glad that I don't live in the States at the moment - it's almost as if the GOP has decided that the best way to win an election is to con the public into believing that 'some people' are responsible for their woes, and those people are women who must be brought to heel.

I came across an FB page last night where a man is running for Sheriff - one of his stated policies (should he be elected) is that he would use deadly force - yes, deadly force against any woman in his county seeking an abortion!

I can't adequately explain just how horrified that makes me.

I don't want to break Godwin's Law but when people talk about it being a political decision, I think about the National Socialists in Germany who were a political party before they became the genocidal Nazis. People must have said, 'oh, but it is a choice' and all those people were wrong. It is a war. They want to do things that are evil.

Forcing a woman to have a trans-vaginal ultrasound - evil
Deadly force against a woman wanting an abortion - evil
Denying a woman basic contraception - evil
Calling some rapes legitimate - evil
Forcing a woman to carry a stillborn fetus to term - evil

I could list more.

Do you know what MrsTerry you are exactly right and thank you for phrasing it in those terms. I have been struggling to 'name' it, if you know what I mean? Because it feels more than the normal patriarchal misogyny BS. Because it IS more than the normal patriarchal misogyny BS.

just how likely is it that this bill will get through? its bloody horrific, i cannot believe that people think like this, that they think its ok to treat women in this way, so much for the land of the fucking free.

op GO PROTEST!! you must do for the sake of your dd and if it seems safe take her along.

Thanks Wilson. Part of me wonders whether this is what happens when we allow feminism to be pushed back and back. We concede the small battles and suddenly there are people who should be considered dangerous lunatics being listened to.

5madthings the fact that they are discussing this in a 'normal' forum and having to fight against it is enough for me. Anyone spouting this stuff should be locked up rather than allowed to hold political office.

I simply cannot understand a world where a fetus is a person but a living, breathing, thinking, walking, talking woman is just a vessel and has no rights.

I totally agree with you MrsTP; I've been watching things unfold over the past couple of years and have seen certain parts of history repeat itself.

I don't know if you've seen the news items about some states attempting to make miscarriage a criminal offence? Tennessee is one.

thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/tennessee-miscarriage-about-to-be-murder-after-legislature-passes-bill/politics/2012/04/24/38401

What is the Republican National Convention? Sorry to be so out of the loop!

My God, just read the links. Now I know. I would protest if I lived there. This is America, now, in this day and age? Has anyone read Margaret Attwood's "The Handmaid's Tale"? That is what they want in fifty years time. (Futuristic story - there's a shortage of children so certain women (the handmaids) are kept in prison-like camps as breeding machines. That said, it's a great story, of a terrifying future. I read it as a teenager and it was horrifying but science fiction and about as likely as the film Total Recall.) Cannot believe these people GOP - what's that?- are looking to make that idea almost the next step.

Cass It's a party political convention, same as the annual tory/labour party fling in Blackpool/Bournemouth.

GOP is the acronym for Grand Old Party = Republicans. They are the policy setters.

CassCade I've been thinking of the Handmaid's Tale too, reading this stuff.

Great book, like you I read it as a teenager, think I'm going to read it again.

Utterly terrifying that America seems to be heading that way.

I am extremely saddened by some of the links here.

The injustice of depriving 3 children of their mother for 10 years because she had a miscarriage, or locking up a teenager for life because she took cocaine once while pregnant is staggering :(

In the Handmaid's Tale, anyone who has had an abortion is made a handmaid.

Having had an abortion is considered a crime, so the state can imprison them, but as they've previously conceived they are considered valuable to the elite, as they can be used as wombs for the infertile married couples among the elite.

They justify it with religion.

Well I am in NJ and the vast majority of people think the congressman is a bad joke. The first four responses on our local discussion board were 'WTF', 'I can't believe it', 'He's an effing idiot.' and 'I realize this was probably a soft interview, but the interviewer shouldn't let people get away with saying things like that on TV. Maybe he corrected him later in the clip, maybe not. But there's just no excuse for not interjecting with a correction/clarification.'

Americans not stupid and are not going to support this guy. At every level Republicans have hammered this knucklehead and rightly so.