Gagged, sued, and punished… the plight of 2017’s modern woman:
As a modern woman in one of the worlds most developed countries it should have been easy to presume that women’s rights are protected. That men, especially a man in charge of an entire country, would understand that sometimes women get caught in situations that are dangerous and scary, situations in which women need help. Well… those reasonable women are wrong.
One of Trump’s first actions as president was to issue a Gag Order, essentially stopping any financial contributions going to any organisation outside of America that even mentions abortion. Clearly, it wasn’t enough for Trump to ruin thousands of lives in his own country, he had to go that one step further and attempt to regress countries outside of his own domain. Trump, being the supposedly amazing overachiever that he claims to be, then went on to add insult to injury, passing another law that no government funds can be used to fund abortion (through the Hyde Amendment) and then, in a form of a spectacularly horrific finale it has become legal in Arkansas to sue your wife for getting an abortion… even if that pregnancy is the result of rape. All thanks to the embodiment of conservative white men by Trumps farce of a Presidency.
The image of Trump surrounded by those six conservative white men as he signs an act shackling women to a life they never wished to have just goes to show how clueless Trump truly is. Never once would he have stopped to consider that if his precious daughters had been caught in a difficult situation that they would have needed the care he just took away from them. Nor did he stop to think that if his son accidentally got an “unsuitable” woman pregnant that his first reaction would most likely be to suggest getting rid of the “problem” through abortion. But why would he have thought about this? When his family is supposedly so perfect.
Now, I find myself wanting to ask Trump, if he has ever been afraid to wear something that shows skin on a night out? Afraid to walk down a street alone in the dark? Or even worse, has he ever been caught in an abusive relationship? Raped? And then forced to give birth to a child born out of violence? The answer is simple, no, because he is not a woman nor does he find himself in a position of poverty. Nor has he ever had to worry about having the financial ability to fight a law suit or pay for medical attention. As a rich man Trump is perpetuating a cycle of poverty.
Recently I overhead a conversation in which, a man I presume to be affluent, said we cannot blame the poor for being ignorant, that the poor do not have the money to access a good education or read anything but The Sun. At first I was offended, but now I realise this is a two way street, we cannot blame Trump for being raised conservative, having had money literally handed to him and having never been told no. We cannot change the fact that Donald Trump has never had a forward thinking idea in his entire life, he is stuck in an age in which women are to be treated as objects, that they should not have control over their own body because how can something you treat like a Barbie doll have fears, emotions or cares?
With this act alone those in poverty or even struggling, cannot afford contraception. Contraception that would prevent the conception of a child that these people cannot afford, then this child will most likely grow up impoverished, and then those with Trumps mentality would most likely blamed said child for the fact that they cannot afford contraception themselves or an education that would allow them to move up in the world. Creating a cycle of inequality that seems as if it belongs in the 1900’s. What makes the entire situation so upsetting is the fact that as the President of the United States of America, Trump controls both the access to contraception and the access to quality education of those who, unfortunately, are in a worse economic position than himself yet he never seems to think about the real life gravity of his actions. As a man so hard line “pro-life”, with his orders he has ruined thousands of lives around the world.
