John, I know we don't talk much. Part of that is my fault — after I flirted with you back in 2000, I'll admit I was a little embarrassed at myself. But you didn't help when you literally embraced W and metaphorically embraced The Surge, let alone when you started getting all cozy with nutbags like Jerry Falwell who we used to hate together. But all the women journalists kept talking about your wit and your charm and your willingness to tell the truth to power, so I thought you couldn't really be that bad. But, as it turns out, you are — particularly when it comes to women. And let's not talk about how you used to not be an inflexible ass when it came to the bare minimum of conservative compassion on abortion — exceptions for life, health, rape and incest — I mean, at least then I was able to tell myself it wasn't personal, just political. But you had to go prove me wrong last night, didn't you. How maverick-y of you.

So, my concern for my own health is extreme, huh? My life is less important than the one I might hypothetically at some point bring forth from my womb? I mean, I know that your VP candidate, Sarah Palin, is supposedly very convincing, but did anyone tell you that her "no abortion ever in a million years, not that the Earth has been around that long" position on abortion only flies with about 10 percent of the population? Or were you too busy staring at her tits? I mean, it was pretty obvious that you weren't listening to Obama when he talked about reducing the number of abortions through common-sense ideas like improving sex education, the opportunities for adoption and supporting women who want to have the children and keep them. But what the fuck, dude, for real? The fetus is more important that the woman in which it resides? Really?

I mean, it's not like maternal death is startlingly uncommon in America — as US News reported yesterday, 1 in 4,800 women in America dies in childbirth, compared to 1 in 48,000 in Ireland. So it is actually not outside the motherfucking question that it could happen to me someday, but it's good to know that you'll take a potential future motherless voter over a current voter any day of the week.

And, even if I give try to you the benefit of the doubt and pretend like you were just talking about late term abortions during the debate last night, well, I can go read Gretchen Voss's story about hers — why she had one, how it wasn't avoidable and how ridding the world of such procedures would have made her life much harder. And then I'm back to wondering where you — and I — went wrong.

In short, I'd like you to take your cancer-ridden ass, remove your head from it and insert this [very NSFW] in it instead. And when you're done making one of your stupid faces, maybe you can notice that women are more than just fetus-incubators and make your own damn sandwich.

McCain Mockingly Suggests That Concerns For A Mother's Health Are Extreme [Huffington Post]

Related: Safe, Legal, And Boring [Slate]
McCain's Falwell Flip-Flop [Salon]
McCain's Abortion Flip-Flop [TPM Muckraker]
Abortion and Birth Control [Polling Report]
Too Many Infants — and Moms — Die at Birth [US News & World Report]
My Late-Term Abortion [The Boston Globe]

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