Swinging Texas Dicks

Using Abortion Laws to Control Women

I’ve said it before (long before Dobbs, in fact), and I’ll say it again: abortion laws are about controlling women. Sure, some people who claim to care about potential babies may actually care about potential babies. A small subset might even have strong religious beliefs that abortion is just as immoral as murder. Most, however, are trying to control women.

This week’s proof: Collin Davis. In February, Mr. Davis found out that his ex-girlfriend was considering leaving the state to get an abortion. In response, he threatened legal action. He sent a letter to the ex, who thankfully hasn’t been named in the press, saying that he would “pursue wrongful-death claims against anyone involved in the killing of his unborn child.”

He wasn’t threatening her with legal action, exactly. Even in Texas—a state that clearly hates women—getting an abortion isn’t a crime. Performing an abortion, however, is punishable with up to life in prison and carries a potential $100,000 civil fine. And thanks to the state’s now-infamous Senate Bill 8, private citizens are allowed (if not encouraged) to file civil suits against anyone who “aids or abets” an illegal abortion.

Davis’s lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell, is actually the architect of SB 8. He also argued the case that now prevents Texas teens from getting Title X contraception without parental consent and the one that might leave us all without free preventative health care. And, of course, he won the Donald-Trump-stays-on-the-ballot SCOTUS case for the former President.

Mitchell doesn’t really care whether Collin Davis’s unnamed ex got an abortion, but he’s clearly dying to use this as a test case to see if he and his anti-abortion friends can prevent pregnant women from crossing state lines.

This should terrify us all.

His initial threat did not work; Davis’s ex left the state and got an abortion in Colorado where it remains legal. But since this isn’t really about her, Mitchell has persisted. Citing Texas Rule 202, which allows lawyers to depose witnesses even before they file a lawsuit, Mitchell has asked a Texas district court to authorize a full investigation into the Colorado abortion. He wants to depose the ex-girlfriend presumably to determine whether there is anyone who helped her whom Davis could sue either under SB 8 or the state’s wrongful death laws. 

Reproductive rights advocates say this is a lot of bluster designed to intimidate women into not seeking out-of-state abortions. Molly Duane, who represented Kate Cox and other women who had been denied abortions in emergency situations, called this “fearmongering” and reminded us that leaving Texas or any other state for an abortion is not a crime. She went on to say, “I don’t want people to be intimidated, but they should be outraged and alarmed.”

Even if this is just two Texas guys swinging their dicks around—one of whom wouldn’t be in this position if he hadn’t already swung his dick around without a condom—it’s chilling. Check out this ad by Gavin Newsom’s’ PAC to see the world women fear.

The right to travel is considered one of the “unenumerated rights” of the Constitution meaning it’s not on the parchment, but over the years the Supreme Court has ruled that citizens have the right to freely move between states. You know what else is an unenumerated right? The right to privacy, which the Dobbs decision gutted and Clarence Thomas would love to eradicate entirely.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: abortion laws are about controlling women and this Supreme Court seems perfectly willing to let that happen.

Bluey’s Dad Pretends to Give Birth, Just Not On Disney+

Children’s television shows are a funny part of our culture. Most of them are only known by parents of small children and, as such, adults only know the ones that were on during a short window of their kids’ childhoods. Sure, some—like Barney, Teletubbies, and Dora the Explorer—break through into the general zeitgeist and become national phenomena (or the butt of jokes about why a purple dinosaur would be so f**king happy), but most come and go, and only the people with kids born within a two-year stretch ever remember them. (Case in point: If you have a kid born around 2006, you probably know what I mean when I say, with a very liquid R, “this… is… sewious.”)

I’ve never seen an episode of Bluey, but from what I’ve read about its loyal fanbase, it might fit into the cultural sensation category. The Australian import follows a family of dogs. Bandit is a Blue Heeler who works as an archeologist and is married to Chilli, a Red Heeler who works part-time doing airport security and has been compared to the all-time great TV moms like Carol Brady and Lorelei Gilmore. Their kids are four-year old Bingo and the title character, six-year-old Bluey. Each episode of the show is between seven and nine minutes long, and this generation of kids and parents are obsessed.

The fact that Bluey is not an American show is clear from the times that it has taken on topics we former-Pilgrims don’t think of as kid-appropriate. It’s not quite John Penisman, the Danish cartoon about a guy who does everything with his penis, but Bluey has included subtle references to vasectomies and miscarriages.

Disney+, which airs the show in the US, has admitted to censoring scenes or lines in the past, and the cartoon giant decided not to air an episode about pregnancy and childbirth. That episode called “Dad Baby” is now available in its entirety on YouTube.  

It would take more than the seven minutes it takes you to watch it for me to explain the entire set up, so I won’t. I’ll just say that Bandit (the dad) pretends to be pregnant by carrying around his 4-year-old in a Baby Bjorn. He then pretends to give birth to said 4-year-old by pushing and squeezing him out of the baby carrier. It’s not an easy delivery; Bluey has to help by pulling from the bottom while their neighbor Pat pushes from the top, and Bandit does some Lamaze-style breathing.

No one knows exactly why Disney decided not to air the episode. We’re long past the days when being pregnant on TV was considered untoward. Maybe they felt it was too close to sex education, which some of their paying customers are trying to get removed from school. Maybe they were afraid of robbing kids of the Stork myth the way I worried that my kids would ruin Santa for all of their friends. Maybe they were weirded out by the gender-bending aspect. Or maybe they think the concept of childbirth will freak kids out in a big object, small hole kind of way.

I’m not really outraged by this particular bit of censorship. It’s a bizarre episode of a quirky show. Sure, it could be a good opening for conversations in which kids learn (or relearn) that babies grow in uteruses and come out through vaginas. That’s accurate and appropriate information for people of any age, and we should all get more comfortable talking about it.

That said, I’m much more concerned about whether today’s Bluey watchers—who will be in high school before you know it—will go to schools that have been entirely stripped of sex education and all books that dare to mention gay people. There are factions around the country working tirelessly to make that happen.

I wonder if when they’re in high school they’ll remember the cute little show about a family of blue dogs and whether their parents will be able to sing the theme song. My oldest is about to graduate, and I still occasionally wake up singing: Wonder Pets, Wonder Pets we’re on our way to help our friend and save the day. We’re not too big and we’re not too tough, but when we work together, we’ve got the right stuff.

This… is… sewious!