I won’t lie.
I didn’t believe the reversal of Roe v. Wade was real when my husband announced “Am I reading this right? Did the Supreme Court just reverse Roe v. Wade?” Now that the initial shock has worn off I suppose we will have to make do with a flurry of opinion pieces, outrage, mass hysteria and even celebration as we wade through yet another bludgeoning of autonomous rights.
After 9/11, I kicked up a fuss when those x-ray machines were installed at airports, citing an outrageous violation of my body’s privacy. To add insult to injury and because I have metal in my body, I’m constantly setting those things off which means I not only have to endure further invasion of my privacy, but I also must allow myself to be molested by a gorilla sized female TSA Agent with a lazy eye, in public through some sort of ritualistic humiliation exercise. She uses the back of her gloved hand to press into my crotch, depress the small of my back, press into my ankles and squeeze my breasts as if I am a prisoner being detailed and worked over prior to my luxurious stay at Guantanamo Bay. “Hey, at least buy me dinner first,” I often quip as the mouth-breathing potato shaped garbage woman with arms and who speaks in a grunting fashion, molests me from top to bottom.
It’s at this point in my life that I realize how much our militarized security state hates people and, specifically, women. I cannot even begin to convey the waves of rage that wash over me when I think about it, and today’s decision.
There should be no doubt in your mind the vitriol, the absolute hatred this country has for women after today’s landmark decision.
I do not care what your political or religious affiliations are. I don’t even care that you think this is cover for some nefarious new world order agenda. If you want to take this landmark decision and turn it into something nonchalant, smugly waving it off as more political pawning in an ever-increasing attempt to wield some sort of land grab or some excuse to raise emotions in the populace, I don’t care. Maybe tomorrow I will care, but I doubt it.
If you’re not emotional or angry about this decision, then there is something decidedly wrong with you. This is exactly the thing one should be angry about: men and women alike. Children should be angry too. Everyone with a breath in their body and a thought in their brain should be angry about this outright, obvious detestable egregious example of perfect, blind, naked hatred of women.
And for the record, it was my husband who reminded me there is not one single woman on the planet who would say “Gee, I can’t wait to get pregnant, just so I can get an abortion!” Come on! If you’re happy about this landmark decision and actually celebrating it because you think that’s how women operate or think, then I think you actually hate women too. It should come as no surprise how many women are severely contemptuous of their own sex, by the way.
I’m not going to extol the virtues of Planned Parenthood. Yes, I’m familiar with its eugenics origins. I can say, though, that millions of impoverished American girls and women have benefited from contraception, information about how to protect themselves from STD’s, and the organization offers counseling regarding incest and rape. Some of their services are invaluable and go beyond providing abortions.
Logistically maybe the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse Roe v. Wade won’t make much of a difference in the scheme of things. It’s still up to States to offer abortion as an option. Here are the states that don’t (offer abortion as an option): Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The women or girls who inhabit these states that need to terminate their unwanted pregnancy are already under enormous stress needing to travel to another state within the necessary time limits.
“But it could take months for all the legal maneuvering to be completed and for the nation to have a more definitive picture over where abortion is legal,” said Greer Donley, a professor specializing in reproductive health care at the University of Pittsburgh Law School. If you’re curious where your state stands then I recommend you consult this Politico piece that maps out which states are legal, illegal or soon to be illegal: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/24/abortion-laws-by-state-roe-v-wade-00037695
Also recommended: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/24/abortion-state-laws-criminalization-roe/
There is no doubt in my mind as the states are picked off, one by one, making it more and more difficult to access safe and legal abortions that we will see a rise in what some would call “back alley” abortions. Dangerous, unsanitary methods used to terminate a pregnancy will have terrible consequences for women’s long term health or even their life.
We’re going backwards and medieval here, it feels like. I’m not being overly dramatic or hysterical. But what’s next? Casting stones in the town square? The stockades? Hangings from bridges? The Scarlet A emblazoned on the lapels of scorned women?
I’m envisioning a scenario that is probably quite common now, but one which we never hear about. A young pregnant mother-to-be has just been told by her doctor that the fetus is not viable and that for her health the pregnancy should be terminated. Now, that’s not an option under Federal law. I suppose it depends on what state or county the hospital is located in. I suppose it depends on what religion the hospital is affiliated with or where it gets its funding. Perhaps these issues have always been a challenge with or without the reversal of Roe v. Wade, but they seem more real now somehow and are made crystal clear examples of issues being raised that should not be raised in the first place.
The “what if’s” in this landmark reversal decision are endless and there is simply no good solution to any of the scenarios. It all leads to one singular message: your body is not your own. You do not have a right to do what you want, or need to do, for your own benefit. You are not allowed to make decisions for your own body.
The repercussions of reversing Roe v. Wade have huge disastrous implications for the very thing we should hold dear above all else: body autonomy. What’s next? Forced inoculations? Forced sterilization? Forced separation of families? Even if you are a staunch, God fearing religious conservative that lives in this black-and-white world that believes abortion is murder, then you are advocating for all the things mentioned above. Be careful what you pray for. You might actually get it. The Supreme Court’s decision to reverse this landmark decision is not good for any of us, especially if you value freedom.
But, I will give you this. Perhaps the goal never was a panopticon of surveillance and control, for profit, as we see in “1984.”
Perhaps the goal has always simply been “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
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