The weekly Screed (#912)

Our bodies, in deed

By David Benjamin

“Once you shift the focus of the abortion from the unborn fetus to the full-grown woman, and once you shift attention from the realm of safe medical procedures in a sterile environment to a last-ditch effort to save the life of a mangled mother, the anti-abortionists lose interest. In the pro-life industry, some lives are more equal than others.”

                                                                                 — Bienfang

MADISON, Wis. — Prof. Wilhelm “D&C” Bienfang, America’s foremost idea man, has been an abortion maven for ages. His photo is still displayed in the Rogues Gallery at the Food and Drug Administration for his development and brief but successful sales campaign for the Ba-B-Gone 911 Home Abortion Kit.

“Forget about that,” said Bienfang, waving a hand. “Blood under the bridge.”

Bienfang’s latest inspiration came to him at a pro-choice rally in Alabama, where many demonstrators brandished signs that read, “Our Bodies, Our Selves!”

“It hit me then,” said Bienfang. “I said to one of the women, ‘Who says?’ and she’s like, ‘Who says what?’ And I ask her, ‘C’mon, sweetie! Who says it’s your body? Where is it written that a woman owns her body?’”

“What did she she say then?” I asked Bienfang.

“Nothing,” said Bienfang. “Just whacked me with her sign. But I didn’t feel a thing, ‘cause I’d seen the way out of this whole pro-life/pro-choice quagmire.”

“Really?” I asked, excited. I’m as tired as anyone of the endless legislation, litigation and melodrama over Roe v. Wade. “Please, tell me. What’s the secret?”

“Body deeds.”

Puzzled, I scratched my head. “Huh?”

Bienfang lit a pipe and twirled his mustache. He said, “A baby girl is born. Right away, before the kid’s out of the incubator, the parents get a birth certificate and a set of footprints, right? What does the little girl get?”

We agreed. Every babe is born a pauper, with nothing to call her own.

“In my system, before the baby’s released to parental custody, she’s given a deed — just as though she was forty acres of bottom land or a slab bungalow in Palo Alto. A legal, notarized deed for her body. She owns it. She holds the option.”

“What option?”

“The option to sell, lease, rent, remodel, demolish, subdivide, add to, strip down, or burn to the ground.”

Alarmed, I asked, “Burn to the ground?”

“Joan of Arc,” said Bienfang.

“Oh, right.”

“But Joanie got rien — except sainthood (meh) — for her little corporeal bonfire,” lamented Bienfang. “She had neither filed nor sold her rightful option. Her body was not her Self. Bishop Cauchon seized it by eminent domain without due process or market-rate compensation. This wouldn’t happen if Joanie’d been indemnified by the Bienfang International Body Deed Registry (BIBDR).”

“There is such a thing?”

“There will be,” proclaimed Bienfang. “We’ve got the green light from Health & Human Services. I’m just waiting for the T’s to be crossed.”

“Okay, how’s it work?”

“Glad you asked. It’s brilliant!” boasted Bienfang. “Her first twelve years, the kid owns her body scot-free. But on her 13th birthday? Shazam! It’s Auction Day.”

“Auction Day? She’s up for bids at thirteen?”

“I know. That’s pretty late. The market for under-thirteens — Humbert Humbert’s word was ‘nymphet’ — is huge. But, yecch. I didn’t want to deal with that element. I’ve got scruples.”

“You do?”

We both laughed. “Well now, the girl’s thirteen. Mind you, she’s allowed to hold on to her body deed — lock, stock and booty. But the temptation to sell to the highest bidder is gonna be a bitch to resist. She’d be looking at potential offers that could hit seven figures. If she refuses, she gets nothing. Not to mention her mom and dad, who, by contract, are entitled to 25 percent, tax-free, right off the top.”

“But,” I sputtered, “who on earth would buy — ”

“Don’t be naive, my boy,” said Bienfang. “Who doesn’t want a virgin girl’s body? Besides a lot of rich old men, white slavers, Middle Eastern sheiks replenishing their harems, pimps, panders, procurers and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, my two biggest bidders — birthday in and birthday out — are going to be the Catholic Church and Planned Parenthood.”

It dawned on me. “I see,” I said. “If the Church owns the little girl’s body, she’ll be forever forbidden from having an abortion. Or even birth control.”

“Unless she gets knocked up in the confessional by Father O’Rourke (God forbid),” said Bienfang parenthetically.

“But,” I pressed on, “if Planned Parenthood buys the deed, she can snuff all the fetuses she wants, and not even Justice Kavanaugh can squawk!”

“Yes!” cried Bienfang. “Because the BIBDR deed system removes the female body from religious intrusion and anchors it in a secular sector that Americans, and especially Republicans, hold truly, deeply, passionately sacred! Real estate!”

Bienfang explained that the original owner, once she sold her deed, would have no independent claim on her personal rights or dignity. But if she signed the right deal on Auction Day, she’d be set for life financially. Each body deed, like a corner lot in midtown Manhattan, would be transferable. It might pass through dozens of owners in the course of one life, even reverting — after depreciation, dilapidation, vandalism, old age, natural disaster or terminal illness had rendered it otherwise unsaleable — back to the original owner.

 

“There’s going to be a huge brokerage market,” said Bienfang, smiling lucratively. “I’ve already arranged to teach a university-level course online.”

I marveled at Bienfang’s latest brainstorm. But I had a quibble.

“Why just girls? Isn’t it fair to assign body deeds to baby boys, too?”

Bienfang shrugged. “Think about it,” he said, condescendingly. The female bod is both a commercial goldmine and a political firestorm. Whether you’re a porn star, a fashion model, the president’s hot daughter or just a teenage mother, there’s a fiduciary, political and territorial stake in your fine fresh form, from your rosebud lips and flowing mane of marketable hair down to the delicate plumbing that runs from your ovaries to your uterus and out your uncircumcised vagina into the big bad beautiful world. On the other hand, your male body is basically a slab of meat, gristle, lard and guts useful for little more than carrying hods and shooting three-pointers. Besides, I already lost that battle to the army of parasites who sell young male bods to The Ohio State Football Corporation and the Major Leagues. Hell, there are nine-year-old hockey players in Minnesota raking six figures under the table from the Golden Gophers. I can’t top that. Plus, it’s immoral.”

“Selling girls isn’t immoral?” I asked.

“Deeds, not girls,” insisted Bienfang.

Then he paused to think, stroking his mustache. “Besides,” he said, “if marketing women’s bodies for every conceivable purpose — from lipstick and Chevy Camaros to hush-money for presidential concubines —why didn’t we stop doing it four or five thousand years ago?”

I had no answer to this, and the professor was still selling. “You have to think of body deeds as the hallmark of true liberation. After all,” said Bienfang, “what better measure of a woman’s control of her body than the freedom to sell it to Caesar for thirty pieces of silver?”