May 12, 2019
Mother’s Day was originally conceived in the early 20th Century by Anna Jarvis, as a way of honoring the hard work and activism of her own mother, Anna Reeves Jarvis. Reeves Jarvis founded “Mother’s Day Work Clubs to combat poor health and sanitation in her community,” (Source: “Trending: The Mother of Mother’s Day,” by Erin Allen, Library of Congress Blog, blogs.loc.gov, 5/8/16). When Reeves Jarvis died in 1905, her daughter began a campaign for a national holiday to recognize the selfless sacrifice of mothers everywhere. President Woodrow Wilson signed a declaration establishing Mother’s Day as a national holiday in 1914. By the time of her death, Jarvis had come to loathe the crass commercialism of the holiday and was actively protesting how far the day strayed from her original intent. One wonders what Jarvis would make of the way mothers, and the children they love, are treated in our country today.
Consider the events of this past week alone. On Tuesday, Governor Brian Kemp signed a bill making Georgia the fourth state this year to enact the so-called “heartbeat bill,” which bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detectable. This law effectively prohibits abortions at six weeks, before many women even know that they are pregnant, rather than twenty weeks. The only exceptions in the law are for rape or incest, if a police report has been filed, (Source: “Georgia Governor Signs ‘Fetal Heartbeat’ Abortion Ban,” by Patricia Mazzei and Alan Blinder, The New York Times, 5/7/19).
Alabama Republicans upped the ante by introducing even more draconian legislation, which contains no exception for rape or incest and exposes doctors who perform abortions to sentences of up to 99 years in prison, (Source: “Could miscarriages land women in jail? Let’s clarify these Georgia and Alabama abortion bills,” by Deanna Paul and Emily Wax-Thibodeaux, The Washington Post, 5/12/19). The absence of a criminal penalty for women in these laws is entirely consistent with the punitive paternalism that underlies them. The proponents of this legislation view women as simple minded and subordinate creatures who are incapable of making decisions about our own bodies; little more than hosts for the fetuses we carry.
It is an absurd fiction to call the proponents of these bills “pro-life,” when these same lawmakers abdicate any responsibility for protecting the health and welfare of our children once they are born. The four states who passed heartbeat bills rank near the bottom of the charts for educational quality, (Source: “Best States For Childhood Education, U.S. News and World Report). In addition, Georgia and Ohio have “experienced statistically significant increases in their rate of uninsured children” in the past year alone, (Source: “Nation’s Progress on Children’s Health Coverage Reverses Course,” Georgetown University Health Policy Institute, ccf.georgetown.edu, 11/21/18).
The strongest measure of the depraved indifference to the sanctity of actual children’s lives is the obdurate refusal of those in power to take any action to stop the epidemic of school shootings. While the problem is national in scope, the highest concentration of shootings occur in the South, where the response has been to arm teachers, rather than consider the slightest regulation of civilian access to weapons of war, (Source: “It’s the law now: In Florida, teachers can carry guns at school,” by Katie Mettler, The Washington Post, 5/9/19).
Taken together, these policies paint a bleak picture of people working feverishly to establish a sadistic patriarchy, where straight men control the sexual agency of everyone else, and our children are consigned to lives of violence and ignorance. These people don’t venerate mothers, or children, or life. Don’t let them claim otherwise. The best way to honor your mother is to vow to do everything you can to drive them from power. Happy Mother’s Day.