Rage-mute so writing: SCOTUS and abortion

After many years of sitting daily in a beautiful chair that is really meant to be a rarely-used accent, I finally purchased a proper desk chair for my office. Though proper, it’s very chic. All green boucle and bowtie lines and midcentury lovely. Because I’m middle-aged, I also put a stylish lumbar pillow on it. I’m very pleased. (I am not pleased that I just had to zoom my screen to 110%, but whatever.)

I share this because I’ve been sitting in said chair for hours now, propped against said pillow, sputtering with fury that is so frothy and incandescent that when I placed fingertips to keyboard, I went blank for a moment and had to ground myself by taking a deep breath and focusing on something simple, physical, and present.

Alito’s draft opinion arguing for Roe v Wade to be overturned is a gut punch that we all knew was coming. Its arrival (via leak!) makes a hideous theoretical an even more hideous reality. Every friend I’ve spoken to today is a roiling cauldron of revulsion, rage, and “I told you so, Susan Fucking Collins.”

As you may have seen, old Susan today has expressed concern that “If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision…it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office.” Lisa M also expressed shock at being misled: “My confidence in the court has been rocked.”

I’m no politician or seer, but I and everyone I know knew that Gorsuch, Calendars, and Handmaid wouldn’t give two holy crucifixes about stare decisis when it came to Roe. Nor will they when it comes to overturning gay marriage (made law in Obergefell) and all other standing rights that don’t map with their extremist white, Catholic/Christian, heteronormative worldview. In short, they lied, under oath, during their confirmations. (Also, did Susan or Lisa or anyone in their party say anything when Droopy Dog McConnell stole the SCOTUS seat from Garland during Obama’s tenure? They did not.)

Alito’s opinion says that states can criminalize abortion with NO exemption for rape or incest. And because so many lawmakers and politicians appear wholly or willfully ignorant about basic science, some want there to not even be exemptions for the health or life of the mother. Observe what this terrifying fool from Oklahoma: said just last week:

"A child who is, in fact, living out part of his or her early life as an ectopic pregnancy is still a unique human being with its own DNA. I don't understand why we allow those children to be murdered."
—Okla Sen. Warren Hamilton (R-Ignorance)

Ectopic pregnancies are NEVER viable and without intervention, they will rupture and KILL the woman.

What this all means is forced pregnancy and forced birth. Can you imagine if your father raped your sister and she HAD to carry and give birth to that baby?

Just one day after Warren Hamilton opined about murdering ectopic fetuses, Ohio state rep, Jean Schmidt (R-Gilead), in response to a Democratic colleague’s hypothetical about a 13-year-old rape victim, said:

“It is a shame that it happens, but there’s an opportunity for that woman, no matter how young or old she is, to make a determination about what she’s going to do to help that life be a productive human being.”

That is sick and perverse beyond compare.

If Roe is overturned, the 13 states with trigger laws banning abortion will immediately put those into effect. Literally overnight, what was a legal right becomes an illegal crime. Five other states will revert to the bans they had in place pre-Roe. Those 18 states do not include Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, or Ohio, all of which will almost certainly institute similarly draconian laws stripping women of reproductive rights. The Guttmacher Institute believes that Montana, Nebraska, and Indiana will join the right-wing flank, and at that point, a full HALF of the United States will, essentially, be Gilead.

The governors of California and New York have already asserted that they will remain safe havens for abortion providers and those who need their services. But what happens if the Republicans manage to pass a national abortion ban? Without a constitutional guarantee that states can write and enforce their own laws—like the one we thought we had via Roe and the right to privacy—nowhere will be safe.

What the Republicans are resigning women to, in particular poor women and women of color, is evil and cruel. It is unconscionable. It’s not like America does a great job of feeding, educating, or caring for most kids anyway. We have the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed country, we do not offer much or any paid maternity and paternity leave. We don’t have universally affordable quality childcare. We use prisons as mental health holding pens for entirely too many suffering people. The healthcare system is, by and large, a mess. Does any of that sound pro-life to you? It’s not. It is disgraceful.

The Republicans and a really gross number of Christians have spent decades putting an overturn of Roe into place. Why do you think they’ve been gutting voting rights so deeply?

I really don’t feel much hope for American democracy. I hope I’m wrong, but I just don’t see much evidence to the contrary. Off to the Supreme Court to protest. Use your voices, y’all.

#StopTheBans Day of Action for Reproductive Rights

“Excuse me, are you pro choice?”
”Yes.”
”But it’s not your body.”
-as told to Emily by a young white man in front of the Supreme Court

It’s been a long month since I last posted. A long time since Kieran died, since his funeral, since his mom started to meet each day without him. It’s been an honor to bear witness to some of her grief, to sit with her in it, to see a community rally together to help in any and all possible ways.

The past two weeks alone have felt horrifically oppressive. We have seen our “president” cross the 10,000 lies to the American people mark. We have seen Alabama and Missouri pass draconian anti-abortion bills; no abortion after six weeks, no exceptions for victims of rape or incest, heinous punishments for any woman who seeks an abortion and any doctor who dares to help her. Meanwhile, the rapist can have parental rights. These bills were voted on by majority-white Christian men. Here’s the Alabama slate responsible:

Do they look like people who have uteruses? Who can become pregnant from rape? They don’t and aren’t. And I am SICK TO FUCKING DEATH of other people, especially sanctimonious, right wing Christian men and women, attempting to regulate what I may decide to do with my body.

If you don’t remember, the right to abortion was decided in 1973. Forty-six years ago. And yet, for as long as I can remember, my mother has hoped desperately that women never need relive the pre-Roe years. I volunteered for NARAL while Tom and I lived in Boston, and marched in their March on Washington in 2005. I have listened ad nauseam as far-right pro-life supporters have demanded that I live by their rules and values while simultaneously denigrating mine and acting in stunningly hypocritical fashion all the while.

See: all the uber-Christians at my high school who sent out conversion caravans and preached abstinence but concurrently held the mantle of highest teen pregnancy rate in my town and area. Consider the one who had a painful, scary miscarriage in the toilet stall next to me in the school bathroom.

See: Alabama governor Kay Ivey carrying on about the sanctity of life as she signs the anti-abortion bill but who has also, while governor, executed seven men on death row. Alabama is notorious for the systemic racism that puts innocent men behind bars, including on death row. This is why the Equal Justice Initiative and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the lynching museum, are housed in Montgomery.

See: the publicly pro life GOPers [Tim Murphy (a PA senator and Elliot Broidy (former RNC deputy finance chair, for example] who have decried abortion while paying for their mistresses and girlfriends to have them. (And if you don’t think serial adulterer Trump has done the same, your head is buried in some dark sand.)

Perhaps most revoltingly, I have become aware that for way too many pro-life folks, pro life really only means pro birth and, ideally, pro-white birth. Just look at the lack of willingness to support programs for hungry children, diaper banks, free- and reduced-lunch plans at school, early childhood education programs, and so on.

Sixty percent of Alabama women seeking abortions are black. “Alabama is tied for fourth-worst place in infant mortality,” according to this article in the Los Angeles Times. In this piece you’ll find that “more than a quarter of Alabama’s children live in poverty; 30 percent of those children are under the age of five. Only half of Alabama’s 67 counties have an obstetrician.” The state has no equal pay laws protecting women from discrimination.

It’s utterly despicable to force children into this world and then refuse to care for them or their mothers. It is sick and cruel to force a girl raped and impregnated by a family member to have the baby and then share custody rights with her rapist. Read this heartbreaking article if you want a firsthand account. That’s not pro life. That’s pro birth and then shit on the mother and shit on the kid. This is anti-woman and control the women at all cost crap.

This morning, I hurriedly coordinated with two regular Resister Sisters so that we could attend the #StopTheBans women’s rights rally at the Supreme Court. All of us canceled or shifted plans, grabbed or made signs, water bottles, and backpacks, and headed downtown. I riffled through my library of protest signs past before remembering that I’d been forced to leave my favorite pro choice sign outside of the Senate building before entering last time.

I scrounged up a half sheet of foam core, Sharpied “I didn’t vote to live in Gilead” on one side and “If it’s not your body, it’s not your choice” on the other, pulled on my resistance shirt, and left with my friend Karen.

Initially the turnout felt small, but by the official start time, the rally was thrumming with energy, camaraderie, outrage, despondency, and determination. My friend Julie arrived, and she and I set up camp just behind the speaker’s lectern, over to the left. This was fortuitous because in addition to the wonderful NARAL and Planned Parenthood speakers, including the wonderfully fierce Dr. Leana Wen (PP’s new president), a long line of Senators and Congresswomen and men, joined us and spoke.

Senators Klobuchar, Hirono, Wyden, Murray, Blumenthal, and Schumer. Congresswomen Pressley and Speier and Congressman Swalwell. Bernie was there but left before speaking. I’m sure I’m forgetting some, and because of early school dismissal I had to leave before the rally ended, but it was really an excellent turnout of support.

Julie felt pumped up and grateful to be in the company of like-minded resisters; Karen and I enjoyed ourselves, but really feel the bleakness of women still being treated like such non-beings. Things feel hard and as if nothing will ease in the near future.

Which was why I was beyond enraged when a young dress-shirt-and-tie guy came up to me and said, as I quoted at the start of this piece:

“Excuse me, are you pro choice?”
”Yes.”
”But it’s not your body.”

Yes it fucking is, man without uterus.

Karen sputtered and said, “Bless his heart,” before we turned around with utter disgust.

“It’s not your body” is really the essence of all this, isn’t it. If you see women as equals, with agency and selfhood, you couldn’t possibly divorce one’s physical self from one’s emotional self, reproductive desires and choices, and independent plans for life. You couldn’t possibly tell her that her body isn’t hers.

I am not just a goddamned vessel. No woman is UNLESS she chooses to be. The choice should be each of ours, as should safety and respect.

Grr, Texas...

I wasn't surprised by yesterday's ruling in Texas which bans all abortions after 20 weeks and which places standards on abortion clinics so onerous that most are expected to now close, but I was disgusted and dismayed. A state of more than 26 million people is soon likely to have just four clinics that can safely offer women the abortions they need or choose to have. Last month, when Wendy Davis successfully filibustered the Texas Legislature's attempt to pass this ban, one of the strictest in the nation, I cheered her strength and accomplishment and felt inspired by her courage and determination. But I also knew that win wouldn't last long. Republicans and pro-lifers in Texas were crazed with outrage; ire feeds them as fuel does fire. And indeed, Rick Perry, TX Governor (he of the "there are three government agencies I'll close when President but I can only remember two of them") soon called a second special session of Congress to again try to ram this bill through.

Yesterday, it passed, largely (and not surprisingly) along party lines. Perry praised the ruling as a defense of "our smallest and most vulnerable Texans and future Texans" while many other supporters claimed this was a sincere means of protecting women's health. These echoed the comments made earlier this summer, following House approval of a ban on abortions after 22 weeks ("the most restrictive ban on abortion considered by Congress in a decade", NYT, 19 June 13), by Speaker Boehner who praised the significance and import of the decision in saying "we have a moral obligation to defend the defenseless..."

This point is repugnant in its disingenuousness. America ranks 50th in the world in maternal mortality: 49 other countries are better than we are at keeping mothers alive during and just after childbirth. According to a report by the Huff Post in August 2012, the maternal mortality rate in the US has doubled over the past 25 years. And this while we spend $98 billion a year on pregnancy and childbirth, making us the costliest place in the world to have a baby. So we spend more to have more women die and now Texas wants to ban all abortions after twenty weeks which means if a woman finds out that she might die after that point, well, tough. If she finds out her baby has a horrible congenital condition and will die after birth, might be born stillborn, might need enormous amounts of medical intervention or assistance for ever after, well tough, her financial state, mental health, the welfare of the baby be damned.

Meanwhile, House Republicans, most of whom also profess to just love life so much, especially when not yet born, stripped funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program before passing the 2013 Farm Bill. Millions of impoverished Americans, including millions of babies and children, rely on SNAP for nourishment: according to a Food Research Action Center report from April of this year, “children in families receiving SNAP were significantly more likely to be classified as ‘well’ than young children whose families were eligible but did not receive SNAP.” So really, I think it is super-consistent with a love of life and just really great morals to make kids be born, but if they're born into poverty and need federal help TO EAT, well forget about it.

As well, the House GOP proposed in May to also slash funding to local school districts and health research but, naturally, all Defense and Pentagon budgets would not be touched. Ok, so you must have all children but if you need help paying for their educations, forget it. You have to rely on public education? Good luck to you.

No one wants more abortions to occur, no one hopes that abortion is in her future, no one gets excited about abortion. That's why the current "discussion" about it upsets me so deeply. Pro-life supporters, in the name of morality, accuse those across the aisle of murder and hate and sin and so forth. In my opinion, that cruel judgment is as hateful as what they accuse pro-choice supporters of "wanting to do."

Abortion-rights activists don't want more abortions, they just want women to have the right to choose abortion if that's what's best for her. They want the mother of three, already strapped and stressed and tired and scared, to be able to decide if she really can't have another baby; can't support it financially, can't handle it emotionally. They want the woman I know, who found at 32 weeks of pregnancy that her baby was braindead in utero as a result of a congenital defect that had caused intrauterine seizures for months, to be able to choose how and when to say goodbye, in a way safe for both of them. These are never easy decisions, but they are often the right ones for these women. And each is HER decision, no one else's, not least some random man in Texas or Pennsylvania (Santorum) or a whole host of others.

I know how fraught this issue is, but to take away the ability to choose for all based on the beliefs of only some upsets and concerns me deeply.