Okay, So Next Time We Have a Baby, Bubba, I’ll Watch While You Deliver
Oklahoma Republican Senator (cringing already, right?) James Lankford has laid down the law. Abortion is his business because he likes the ladies.
He’s even been known to watch them in labor and holy cow that was painful. His little beady eyes were just writhing in pain.
He was arguing with Barbara Boxer about Planned Parenthood and told her this —
“I’m a dad of two daughters,” he said. “I had something to do with the birth as well, and was also there. I was there during the sonograms. My wife and I are extremely close. And to be a dad of two daughters, I’m very passionate, not only about my own wife, but about my mom, who’s a cancer survivor — multiple-time cancer survivor — I’m passionate about my daughters having every single opportunity.”
Oh no you didn’t.
Your wife gave birth. You watched. Your momma had cancer. You watched. So, I tell you what – you make the rules about watching and I’ll make the rules about birthing.
Have a medical emergency? Call James. He’ll watch.
Every single opportunity? Really. Every single one, huh.
Well, welcome to the… oh, beg pardon? Every opportunity except the opportunity to control their own child bearing?
Well, then.
1Closet James will have to the birthing experience will be having Senator Boxer’s foot surgically removed from his backside. Lucky for him that Senator Boxer is retiring, before he collects frequent flyer miles to Walter Reed.
2Jame Lankford, starring as Chauncy Gardener in the reboot of Being There.
“I like to watch. Sonograms on the little TV.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqL77G2x61E
3Dear Bubba,
I have a daughter, too. I gave birth to her, my own self. And I sat with her through two excruciating pregnancies, for much-wanted children – nearly uncontrollable nausea for 9 months each. I sat with her in the infusion center where she went 3x a week to try to get enough med to make it through. Each week she had to judge for herself how much she was prepared to suffer.
You, sir, have no flippin’ idea. And you have no right to try to tell my daughter how much she should endure. HER body, HER choice. Not yours, not Clarence Thomas’s or Antonin Scalia’s or John Roberts’s. Not my choice, as much as I ached for her. Not even her husband’s choice.
So pontificate all you want; just makes you look more like a pompous ignorant twit to any woman who’s actually been there.
4Maybe after he passes a major kidney stone, he might have a modicum of a notion of what it is like to give birth. But for now, do not dare to even go there! Note that I am only being polite for Momma’s sake.
5As far as wanting your daughters to have every “opportunity.” Let us simply say that there are millions of folks out there who do not share your views on reproductive issues and might just quarrel with your ideas of opportunity. Keep your small-minded laws off our bodies–we are quite capable of making our own reproductive decisions. End of rant.
He got to watch. Difficult life. How hard is that?
6Laurel –
You Rock!!
7There were a bunch of guys recently who went through an experiment that showed them how painful labor and birthing is. None of them wanted to change places as a result with any woman. Lankford is my selection to be part of the next such experiment.
This boy doesn’t have the brains of a spoon.
8I don’t know if it’s true that there is or was a tradition in some Indian tribe that the woman giving birth got to hold a rope tied around her husband’s family jewels and could give it a yank whenever the contractions got bad… but it’s definitely a tradition that this guy should have experienced.
An advice columnist– Carolyn Hax?– said last week that birth was like a wet Saint Bernard trying to get through a cat door.
9I don’t care how close he is to his wife or daughters, he still doesn’t have any business telling other women what happens to their bodies. How would he like it if I told him he had to have a vasectomy.
As for the “bunch of guys recently who went through an experiment that showed them how painful labor and birthing is”, I think it should be something every male should go through, maybe during sex ed in high school or as a prerequisite for graduating high school. It might help to enlighten them.
10Even worse, Lankford was trying to tell Barbara Boxer, a woman who has had two children, all about how it feels. Man-splaining, anyone?
11Hollyanna? Older white male here. Did the kidney stone thing. Never been a birthing woman but if what I went through is in any way similar to what labor is, my heart goes out to birthing women everywhere. Take my word for it guys, you DO NOT want to experience it.
12Ummm. As to those two daughters James is “so passionate” about. I sincerely hope those daughters don’t end up poor someday [I know, unfathomable to someone with the brains (and I use the term loosely) of a certain Republican senator from Oklahoma – – but it could happen] and in need of health care. I wonder what ol’ James will say when they look him square in the eye and ask him why he took it away from them. I want to be a fly on the wall of the room where that conversation takes place.
13Just my opinion, but what does being a dedicated family man and being concerned about HIS family have to do with making health care decisions for millions of other people? I just don’t get politicians.
14Back in the dark ages when we had babies, I remember a mother telling someone who asked how it felt to have a baby:
15“Open your mouth. Now, pull it back around your ears….”
Well, I did not have a child, but this breast cancer survivor would NEVER suggest to have any part in any other person’s decisions about their own body. What a pompous ass. No man should have the final say about a woman’s body unless she is dying and gave him health care power of attorney. Then he should be carrying out her wishes not his own.
16Some day we might get a judicial ruling that there is a compelling state interest in regulating the use of the testicles equal to the state interest in regulating the use of the uterus. After all, one is not useful without the other. And equality under the law is possible even though improbable.
17So what penalty is he proposing for deadbeat dads? Rapists? My proposal is castration. I’d suggest the same for males who don’t know how many children they have. Or if not that, mandatory vasectomies for sure. Child molesters? Death penalty. Males who use children as pawns in divorce proceedings?
I’ll let others make their suggestions too. I’m sure Lankford will write the bills and vigorously support them, even make them his defining issue. After all, we know he’s not interested in controlling women’s bodies and treating them as lesser human beings. He wants to protect girls and women, so these are right up his alley.
Go for it Lunkhead, er, Langford.
18Lankford is one of those new breed Southern Baptists. They have ALL the answers for EVERYTHING. In other words, he’s totally clueless.
19“How would he like it if I told him he had to have a vasectomy.”
I have to believe there are more people than just me who would be comforted by the thought of him being fixed; no more of his DNA passing into the next generation, aside from his daughters.
20I wonder what he would decide if his wife or a daughter ever needed an abortion to protect her health or life?
Sure doesn’t sound as though he’d want her to decide. I mean, after all, he WATCHED.
21He said, “I had something to do with the birth as well.”
Yeah, about 30 seconds worth compared to her 9 months.
22I’d definitely suggest the kidney stone attack. One of the top five pain experiences, but you don’t get the reward of having the baby when it’s done.
Honestly, these fools that are pandering to the Evangelicals make me sick.
23When it comes to matters of women’s’ health issues as with most matters Republicons have no empathy. Basically if it hasn’t happened to them personally, they are clueless. My wife Jane has a couple of suggestions that would wipe the phrase “routine procedure” out of their smarmy mouths.
#1 No more ‘grab and cough.’ Men need to learn to take it like a woman. Ouch, but yes slap those balls up on the little table/vise and examine them as would be done in a “routine” mammogram.
#2 No more finger waves for weaklings prostrate exams. No sir. Up on the table, feet in the stirrups and say hello to the cold speculum as would be done in a “routine” ob/gyn exam.
She could go on and trust me she does. But whatever you do if elected President Miss Juanita Jean, do not appoint my wife as surgeon general.
24He needs a uterine transplant. Then artificial insemination with a cold turkey baster. Then the ENTIRE pregnancy, and “normal” delivery. No C-section–if a female hyena can give birth through her clitoris, which looks like a penis, which she does (https://storify.com/ahilborn/hyenasexfail), then Sen. Lankford can give birth through his junk.
Until then…he can shut his trap.
25Elizabeth Moon – don’t forget the trans-vaginal ultrasound.
I know, no vagina – but they can improvise.
26@Elizabeth Moon
27Nahhh He needs a mind transplant. It doesn’t take a huge IQ to know or learn when to STFU.