Legislative climate is obscene, not Trudeau's comics

Newspapers, rightly, faced a lot of criticism this week for pulling Garry Trudeau's series of comics about Texas' sonogram law.

I happen to agree with the many readers who have argued that while the strips are at times uncomfortable to read, it's the law that's obscene, not the satire.

It's understandable that papers were reluctant to run this week's Doonesburys on the comics page, where they might come in contact with young eyes and older readers expecting lighthearted laughs.

But there's something a little sinister about not running the strips at all, of politely turning away from a disturbing trend that deserves considerable public debate.

Texas legislators are not alone in hoping to dissuade women from choosing legal abortion by forcing them to listen to descriptions of grainy black-and-white images of their developing fetus.

In fact, bills mandating that women seeking abortions submit to transvaginal ultrasounds or similar unnecessary procedures have been introduced in a handful of state legislatures.

Such bills far overreach the idea of informed consent - and that's the crux of Trudeau's Texas series, which literally outlines in black-and-white the patronizing details of Texas' version of the law.

The strip pokes with a sharp stick at the Madonna-whore inflections of hundreds of reproductive rights bills that have been introduced across the country and the rhetoric that's surrounded them.

In fact, some newspaper editors have said they yanked the strips, in part, because one included the word “slut,” which they thought would be offensive to readers.

Again, uncomfortable. Again, Trudeau's not to blame.

Almost everyone understands it's not OK to call a woman “slut.” It has never been a nice word, but right now it's as good as toxic - just ask Rush Limbaugh.

The root of the vulgarity is, of course, the age-old idea that Good Girls Don't - which is the message a lot of women are getting from the barrage of attempts to legislate their personal decisions.

Why that's offensive should be self-explanatory. The question of how often, with whom and under what circumstances a woman decides to have sex is nobody's business but her own.

And for a certain class of speaker, words like slut and whore are used to try to shut women up when sex isn't even the issue. You'll remember Sandra Fluke's testimony was about birth control for medical conditions, not so she could sleep around.

In every case, it's a way of saying a woman has no value. She doesn't count - another message many women are taking from this rash of legislation.

It's uncomfortable, it's odd, even a little frightening to consider the ways American women's sexual morality has crept into legislative debate.

But that's not Trudeau's fault. And we don't resolve it by turning away.

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