My PDA Family: Equality Cannot and Will Not Be Held Back
Donna Smith
Disgusted American
Mother of six, grandmother of 15, great-grandmother to 10
Did I not use my womb enough?
Through two-plus years of pandemic and all the garbage flung during the Trump period, I watched and hoped somehow this country might wake up and shake off the old, white-guy mentality and its cruelty. Though women’s rights have expanded slowly through my lifetime, my nation has now, with its Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade, officially become a place where women are much lesser citizens. Again.
What right have these people to strip my right to control my own body? What’s next, women? What’s next, men? Will this finally make some lazy people vote? Or will we allow ourselves to slide back to some weird fantasy version of women as chattel? Look it up, if you don’t know what that means — if you won’t vote, then you’ll need to know what the future holds because of your neglect of democracy.
I’m angry. I’m hurt. But today I am no longer getting closer to equality. I am sliding to my grave watching and listening to men decide my granddaughters’ rights. To paraphrase, it’s “bullshit.”
Now will you care? Now will you vote? Now will you fight? The answer remains ahead.
There is nothing pro-life about the so-called pro-life movement. Call it out for what it is: subjugation of women’s bodily autonomy through forced birthing. Where is the concern and state support for unwanted babies born from this policy? Where is the accessible and state-supported prenatal care for these women? Where are the policies to make contraceptives more easily available to prevent unwanted pregnancies?
For that matter, where are the policies, fines, and criminal liabilities to hold men who impregnate women accountable for their actions?
If you choose not to vote, or if you don’t ask where candidates stand on the issue of women’s bodily autonomy, or if you vote for any so-called pro-life candidate–no matter how well qualified they are otherwise–the blood of this and future generations of American women are on your hands. Overturning Roe v. Wade will not reduce the number of abortions. It will reduce the number of safe abortions; it will reduce the availability of comprehensive reproductive healthcare; it makes our society less free, less equitable, and less humane.