I tried. I had a 3 panel Mite Be Funny cartoon about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe ready to publish yesterday. Was it funny? Well, it was about as funny as any Mite Be Funny cartoon, which isn’t saying much. But it definitely had more humor than the somber Flies On Washington Walls cartoon about Roe that I recently published.
I just couldn’t bring myself to push the Publish button. So, I rewrote it into a single panel cartoon about Clarence & Ginni Thomas. Once again, I couldn’t publish. I just can’t bring myself to associate the overthrow of Roe with any semblance of humor. Humor and overturning Roe don’t fit for me. I can’t do it.
We have too many family & friends whose lives will be altered through this Roe reversal, and it’s not all about getting an abortion. For example, did you realize that in the process of IVF (in vitro fertilization), discarded fertilized eggs may be considered to have been aborted? And SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas made it clear that they may not stop at Roe. Protection for same sex marriage, LGBTQ rights, and even contraception are all on the chopping block, so to speak. Will I be branded a criminal someday because I have a vasectomy?
Living in Illinois, we are safe for now. We have a strong pro-choice Democrat as governor and Democrat-controlled legislatures. But hold on. Everyone is up for election in less than 5 months. Illinois has a history of electing Republican governors. Ugh! Thanks, downstate Republican rubes. My focus for the November elections will be to flip our local Illinois State House seat blue. Click HERE for the voting record of Republican incumbent Dan Ugaste. Yuck. At least he voted against puppy mills. Our just-announced Democratic candidate is a female pro-choice microbiologist! She didn’t go through our primary election process, so the Democratic Party will have to slate her which will involve getting her a lot of signatures. We will.
The bottom line is that we got an excellent local candidate for IL State House in November, and you did not get a Mite Be Funny cartoon yesterday. Everyone wins.
Jim Flanigan Looks at the World 