Forced birth is doomed because "pro-lifers" don't believe in their own "beliefs"

Only *one* Polk elected official would even answer my yes/no questions about whether they support Charles and Jennifer Canady's dishonest, brutal, and unpopular war for forced birth.

I predict that after it hears oral arguments this morning, the corrupt Charles Canady Supreme Court will follow its dictatorial nepotism instincts and deny the people of Florida their lawfully earned right to vote in a referendum rejecting forced birth.

Shortly thereafter, I predict, the Charles Canady Supreme Court will impose the deeply unpopular Jennifer Canady 6-week forced birth mandate (which is a de facto total ban on terminating a pregnancy, with no workable exceptions.) See article on most recent polling here.

The Canadys — Lakeland’s own Charles and Jennifer, the first couple of gross Florida nepotism — have very very few actual public allies. They have no interest in even trying to build public support for their dictates. They care only about letting distant, bureaucratic power make their whims stick.

Thus, I suspect they imagine jamming 6-week forced birth down the throats and uteruses of the vast majority of Floridians and Lakelanders who oppose their state-sanctioned brutality will mark the end of this unpleasantness.

They will speak. We 62-percent or more will quietly obey after some kvetching, after which they’ll pat us on our heads. Our local officials will swoon and praise them. We’ll all move on together in a happy forced birth paradise of cheerful condescension, backed by state violence.

That’s how would-be dictators always think of “governing.” The Canady instinct to is to stick it o you because you can’t do anything about it. They’re usually right.

Not this time. This moment marks the beginning — not the end — of a very ugly and unpleasant moral war imposed on our communities unnecessarily by the collective dishonesty, moral bankruptcy, and unearned arrogance of “pro-lifers.”

The Canadys and their few allies will lose this war. It’s just a question of time and the volume of blood and suffering and community division our silent “leaders” will passively impose on us while pretending they have nothing to do with it.

How do I know they can’t win?

About a month ago, I sent the same three questions individually to every elected countywide elected official in Polk County and each Lakeland city commissioner. The overwhelming majority of these folks ostentatiously declare themselves “pro-life” and bleat out that “life begins at conception” on the campaign trail and political settings. So I asked simply:

1. Do you support Florida's current 15-week forced birth requirement? 

2. Do you support the 6-week forced birth law sponsored by Jennifer Canady?

3. Do you support the Nov. 2024 referendum to protect women from forced birth? 

Forced birth is experienced and enforced locally. The implications are felt by every pregnant woman at Lakeland Regional Health. Polk Sheriff Grady Judd was willing to hunt down an anti-forced birth protester who tossed a pair of panties because Jennifer Canady told him to out of embarrassment. The Lakeland City Commission expressed a general openness to localized forced birth requirements back in 2021 in open meetings.

And the politicians serving at the local level are the future legislators and congresspeople who will legislate the forced birth rules that are enforced locally.

So my questions and the positions are deeply relevant.

And only Lakeland City Commissioner Stephanie Madden had enough respect for the public and herself to answer me. After some fairly tense back and forth, she said she supports the current 15-week law and Jennifer Canady’s infinitely more brutal 6-week forced birth. And she opposes the referendum.

I obviously find those positions — especially 6-week — a cruel and vast government overreach. But I respect Stephanie Madden, who I like both personally and as a Lakeland commissioner, for expressing them. It is far far more than Jennifer Canady herself ever did. She lied to my face and everybody else’s when I asked her these same questions (minus the referendum) as a candidate.

The rest of those “leaders” were completely unwilling to even state yes/no public policy preferences on the issue that supposedly shapes their morality, drives their political party, and has completely upended what it means to get pregnant in Florida.

Now they want to avoid any public responsibility for the invasive government carnage their supposed beliefs have unleashed on the of rest us, which the clear majority of even their fellow Republican citizens don’t want.

Congratulations, fake pro-lifers

Check out these pro-life accomplishments:

• In Texas, which has a near total abortion ban, forced birth is driving up the teen birth rate and baby deaths are surging.

• A recent JAMA study found that 59,000 pregnancies caused by rape occurred between July 1, 2022, and January 1, 2024 in states with total abortion bans and no rape exceptions. 59,000 rape victims forced by government to give birth thanks to people like the Canadys and Marilyn Paul.

• Overall, countable pregnancy termination is up, significantly, in America and Florida after the Dobbs decision. And that doesn’t even count the uncountable terminations.

The “pro-life” response is total, cowardly, abject silence. Lalalalalalalala. Can’t hear you.

You, pro-lifers, unleashed an aggressive, intrusive war on us, the majority. It has massive anti-life consequences. And now you all want to pretend like it doesn’t exist and let the passive brute force of somebody else operationalize forced birth for actual flesh and blood women and girls. Declare war, run away, and dump the violence on other people.

That’s pathetic; and it’s why forced birth is doomed. None of you believe your own beliefs, with the exception of maybe Stephanie Madden.

I do believe my beliefs

If you’ve spent any time reading me in Polk County in the 15 years or so I’ve been “blogging,” you know that forced birth writing is fairly new for me.

I largely avoided it when abortion wasn’t criminalized because it’s divisive and hard to reason about in the abstract. I didn’t have much to offer a theoretical debate over “life” that would justify the discord.

But we’re not in theory or abstraction any more.

And it’s entirely your doing, pro-lifers, not mine. I even tried to warn a lot of you about what would happen if you did this.

This is the moral war you thought you wanted. You’re proving every day now that you didn’t and you don’t want it. You don’t believe in your own beliefs enough to even state them.

Bah.

I do believe in my aggressive defense against your war, wholeheartedly. So do the people — of all political stripes — who signed and assembled the lawful referendum the Canady marriage is going to go dictator on. We’re not running and hiding; you are. Expect this to be in your face, relentlessly, forever.

If you weren’t morally prepared for what comes next, ya’ll all should have left well enough alone.