Reader Mail

Today, I've gotten a letter from a reader of Tiny Cat Pants. It reads as follows (edited to include some less-distressing content. Materials added to the letter are in brackets.):

[Dearest Aunt B.,] When are you feminists going to start going bonkers over Alito being confirmed to the Supreme Court? Can you feel your reproductive rights being taken away at this very moment? [Sincerely, A Gentleman Reader p.s. I think you're so cute when you're mad. The thought of your brow furrowing in anger as you read this letter about sends me around the bend. I want to kiss you right now.]

Dear Gentleman Reader, I'm sorry but there will be no smooches for you. Though I am righteously indignant at the thought that there exists only one Republican senator with the guts to vote against this man, I, like all other feminists, are resigned to the fact that he's now on the Supreme Court. Really, it's another day another politician trying to stick his nose into my vagina (and not in the fun way). Here's what will happen. Folks will now rush to get some monumental abortion ruling before the court, the court will then make some decision that, on the surface, keeps Roe in place, but guts it. Abortion will fall back to the states and women in conservative states will lose their right to one. It remains to be seen what kind of pressure is then brought on folks undergoing fertility treatments, many of which also create embryos which are never brought to term. Will they lose the ability to decide when and if they reproduce? I kind of doubt it. Much of the abortion debate is really about making sure slutty women are punished with children, not about making couples who really want kids miserable. It's all very interesting, and I'd love to be more outraged, but I'm busy making popcorn so that when it dawns on Republicans that they've thrown their support behind a man who thinks the Presidency is just like being king and what that means in terms of their own civil liberties, I can snack and laugh at the same time. Really supporting Alito was like watching Republicans route around in a septic tank looking for stuff to throw at us--Alito just happened to be the biggest chunk--and a day will come when they'll look down and realize that they're covered in the same shit they tossed our way. On that day, I will laugh, if I'm still allowed to laugh. (It's hard to tell how far back women's rights are going to get rolled.) Love, Your Dearest Aunt B.