Yesterday the Supreme Court, packed with incompetent jackasses put in place by the King of Incompetent Jackasses himself, voted to take away my right to bodily autonomy, along with that of every other woman in the country who could still claim to have it.
I had my tubes tied back in 2016 when my second child was born. My husband had to sign off on the procedure. As if he should have a say whether or not I would have more children when he isn’t the one risking his life and health carrying said children. We both thought it was ridiculous.
It’s ridiculous that in 2022 I have to worry about my daughter’s bodily autonomy. I explained to her today what this decision means. I didn’t want to, but she caught me crying, and I don’t hide things from her especially when they matter this much.
So I explained that these old decaying white men, who don’t even know how women’s bodies work and aren’t doctors, just decided that a clump of cells that may or may not successfully grow into a baby has more rights than the mother who carries it. That they hide behind God to oppress people, and that this is backlash from the civil rights gains made in the past few years: the first Black president, first Black and female VP, gay marriage.
That they don’t give a damn about the mother, the baby, or anyone but themselves. It’s a distraction from the January 6 panel, and they think so little of our rights that they’ve decided taking them would be a good diversion while they cover their own asses. That their real gods are money and power.
It’s not about the fetus, it’s about control.
I told her that even if she never wanted to have an abortion, that was her choice, and she should always have that choice. And I will do whatever I can to make sure she has that choice.
I wish I could say I’m shocked that this country cares more about gun rights than reproductive rights. Or that I’m shocked at the hypocrisy of conservatives. These are the same people who screamed “MY BODY!” when we tried to get them to get a goddamn vaccine. Oh, but it’s risky! Well SO IS PREGNANCY.
If any of them actually gave two shits about my children or yours or any children we’d be doing something about climate change. We’d be supporting the kids and mothers already here, including the kids and families that don’t look like the white man white woman 2.5 kids and a dog that come standard with the Melissa and Doug dollhouse. We’d be following the fucking COVID recommendations instead of pretending the pandemic is over. Making healthcare accessible to pregnant people. Signing off on universal maternity/paternity leave. Or banning guns no one needs that can tear a classroom full of children’s bodies to pieces. There’s so many things we could do to help families and nurture humans. But they choose to only care about the unborn…because it’s not about the fetus. It’s about control.
I don’t buy for a hot second that it’s even about religion. The Bible has mixed messages on literally everything. Christians can’t even agree on a denomination. When I lived in the Bible belt I regularly drove by corners with four different churches on each one. When I was forced to attend church as a kid, I questioned – even then – why none of it made sense.
I feel bad for the actual Christ-like Christians I know, because their religion is used to justify being so un-Christ-like. At the same time I want to scream at them to DO SOMETHING. Get their house in order. Take back their religion. Fight for what Jesus would actually DO, instead of what some of these pastors interpret from the cherry-picked verses they want to use to push their own narrow-minded bigoted agendas.
Because it’s all about control. Control over when and with whom women have sex. Gutting education so Americans are too dumb to question as they’re ruining the country entirely. Keeping women and their families at poverty level with more kids they can afford so they’ll keep working shit jobs for shit wages. The rich get richer, and their daughters will always have access to abortion.
I was at a rally earlier in May when the draft leaked, and I saw the ghouls carrying their posters of gory chopped up babies. They had labels on them with months, and they were entirely bullshit. These people don’t deal in facts and reality. They’ll stoop lower than the bowels of their own hell to suck people into their alternate reality where old white men are saviors and everyone else is expendable. Except that fetus, until it’s out! Then the hell with it too.
Those posters did make me think, though. I wondered where the photos came from. Whose deceased late-term fetus they were disrespecting, waving those photos around like some murderous whore just decided at 24 weeks she wasn’t doing it. That’s not how that works.
But that’s beside the point. If they had any empathy for that actual fetus, they wouldn’t be parading the evidence of its demise around on a poster and lying about the circumstances. We know what lowers abortion rates: birth control access and education. They’re against that, too.
I read some of the articles about how happy these deluded conservative women are now that they can force their sisters to have more children than they want or afford. One in particular was gushing about how now that we’ve saved the fetus, we will move on to enact social programs to make sure every mother and child is supported!
Bitch please. Your exalted holy white men lied to us, and they’re lying to you. You’ll just look the other way when these kids are starving or abused or neglected. You’ll say they’re safe with Jesus when they die in the next school shooting. And when your teenaged daughter comes calling with a positive test, you’ll quietly take her to the next state or country to have your moral abortion.
I’m still processing my feelings about all this. There’s the rage, but as an American woman there’s always a layer of rage pretty close to the surface because so many of my fellow Americans are content to look the other way when others are treated as less-than, expendable. But I think under that is this giant reserve of sadness. That so many consider a woman, girl, or trans-man as less important than a potential life that person may not want to nurture into existence.
I never had to make that choice but I was always glad to have it. I came so, so close. My first boyfriend pressured me (two years younger) into having sex before I even knew basic shit like the pull-and-pray method didn’t work. I was late. This boy proposed that he would attempt to do a DIY abortion with “something sharp” because he was afraid to tell his mother or mine. I chickened out. I told my mom. She took me to the doctor, and I wasn’t pregnant…but if I had been, she would have let me make my own choice.
That boy grew up to be a conservative Catholic Republican. He sent me a friend request once, and I peeked, curious to see what he’d turned out like. He has a daughter.
I have a daughter and a son. I love them both with all my heart, more than I have ever loved anyone including myself. And the reason I have that space and capacity to love them is because I had them when I was ready. I wasn’t ready at 14. I wasn’t ready when I was “legal” at 18 with a latent death wish, an alcohol problem, and zero fucks what happened to me, let alone a baby. I wasn’t even ready at 25 or 30 because I was still recovering from my youth and figuring out who I was, building the life I wanted with the rare, decent, considerate, empathetic man I fear is becoming extinct in this society.
Every woman should have the life she wants, the children she wants. Not the life or children she’s forced into having because of biology and an outdated misogynistic religion that has been used to oppress people since the man himself died on the cross.
I think what makes me the saddest is that most of us want to leave our kids a better world to live in. And we just can’t anymore in this country.
Dreadful Ideas 