I never liked Kool-Aid. I didn’t trust its fluorescent colors, the ridiculous amount of sugar that went into its mix, not to mention that it hurt both my teeth and my stomach. Who likes puking blue mush? Not me. I really wanted to like it, and sometimes even deigned to drink some. This was mostly because other kids loved it and seemed excited about it. The image of the Kool-Aid guy crashing through walls unannounced to the jubilation of whoever happened to be in the room also appealed to my paleolithic sensibilities. Still, many birthday parties and Sky Dancers later (seriously my favorite staple gift of the 90’s. Bring them back!) I couldn’t make myself like it. This dislike only intensified as I learned about its affiliation with the Jim Jones Massacre, and understood the meaning of the phrase “drinking the Kool-Aid.”
It hurts my stomach and my empowered feminine mind to think that we live in a world where people still love Kool-Aid, and drink it by the gallon both figuratively and literally.
I realized this as I watched feminist progressives applaud the alleged rapist, serial sexual harasser, and celebrated liar Bill Clinton appear at the DNC to somehow bestow legitimacy upon Barack Obama as an option for president of the United States.
It reoccurred to me as I watched the embarrassingly melodramatic (and predominantly, Canadian) pro-Obama status updates blow up my newsfeed the night of his re-election. Apparently, hysterical tears and anthropomorphic reproductive organs have taken the continent by storm. I didn’t understand it in 2008, and I don’t understand it now – and that’s despite watching several hours of The View.
The only thing that makes less sense to me than self-respecting women valuing an endorsement from Bill Clinton is self-respecting women supporting Planned Parenthood. Cecile Richards was busy licking her chops and writing commander-in-chief love tweets as Tonya Reaves bled to death for over five hours after being irrevocably maimed during a legal abortion and then discarded by a Chicago-area Planned Parenthood. The Planned Parenthood did not give the local emergency room information regarding what went wrong, which only made the situation worse. The Planned Parenthood also refused to call 911, and eventually had her dropped off at the hospital by a Fire Department’s ambulance. Even an emergency hysterectomy couldn’t save her. She was 24 years old.
This came just a few months after Obama called Sandra Fluke to assure her that she wasn’t a slut. One is supposed to be able to tell from this action that he really cares about women, and unequivocally condemns misogynist, demeaning, and insulting speech. Oh, wait. Interestingly, Reaves’ orphaned son didn’t warrant any phone call, condolences, speaking engagements, or even acknowledgement from Obama or Richards. Obama has since made it clear that he wants his ties with Planned Parenthood to be as intimate as possible, and is still pretending that they actually provide mammograms (they don’t), and that they don’t aid and abet sex-trafficking, sex-selective abortion and statutory rape (they do). In a particularly un-feminist move, Planned Parenthood and its presidential advocate also don’t seem to value informed consent. At least they have time to make informative videos like this, and culturally sensitive videos like this. It seems that Reaves, her aborted child, her orphaned son, and all of the other victims of Planned Parenthood’s anti-woman practices are supposed to suck it up for the sake of Obama, his celebrity cheer squad, and free condoms.
The fact that women voted for this violent and institutional misogyny in droves is disturbing, but not unsurprising given the identical trend that exists in Canada. Unfortunately, Canada remains the only Western industrialized country without any abortion legislation. This has been the case for decades, and means that the unborn child has no rights and no protections under the law. While Joyce Arthur and her supporters at the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada (ARCC) gush about their literally non-existent abortion rights, they simultaneously argue that unrestricted abortion access is necessary regardless of the gestational age of the fetus, but that late-term abortions rarely happen in Canada anyway. They are incorrect on both counts.
Meanwhile, another prominent pro-choice hypocrisy and insult to human intelligence is noted by the National Post’s George Jonas:
…the pro-choice crowd usually opposes capital punishment — except for the crime of inconveniencing a woman. Inconveniencing men is okay. Fathers can’t opt out of child-support if the mother decides to keep the baby, no matter how “inconvenient” fatherhood may be for them. Nor could a father save his child’s life even by assuming sole responsibility for its maintenance. Men and women are supposed to be equal… Yet fatherhood is compelled by law, while motherhood is a matter of choice. How do lawmakers get around this hurdle? In the same way they get around any question for which there’s no answer in logic or equity. They ignore it.
Despite these issues, and that polls show that most Canadians believe that there should be abortion restrictions, Canadians are still obligated to pay for these abortions through the public healthcare system, and do so without complaining. While there is a strong and growing youth movement to defund abortion in Canada, that Canadians have been complacent and comfortable with such an unjust situation for so long is troublesome.
It seems that blindly drinking “Kool-Aid” has a healthy history in both Canada and the United States, and the practice isn’t going away any time soon. What is the solution to this problem? It’s simple: spit that Kool-Aid out and think twice before taking another sip. It’s never too late to inform the Kool-Aid guy that somebody’s going to have to fix that wall. There is no reason to be satisfied with and accept something that is unsatisfactory and unacceptable. That includes blood-soaked misogyny dressed in a pink ribbon and peddled by direct beneficiaries in smart pantsuits, and generic ARCC rhetoric, logical inconsistencies, and general disdain for human life. Don’t forget about women, like Tonya Reaves, who are sacrificed on the altar of pro-choice politics and don’t receive even a sliver of the attention that Sandra Fluke received.
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