Tag Archives: scotus

A Year After the Fall of Roe

24 Jun

It might be cliche to say, but there are those moments in life, be they good or bad or somewhere in between, that sear themselves in your memory. You remember every conversation, every smell, where you were and what you did after. For me, the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the almost 50 years of precedent that was tossed out with it was one of those moments. It was a moment so many of us knew was coming, even before the leak of the Supreme Court draft on the decision. It was a moment those of us who pay particularly close attention to reproductive justice felt was possible for years as we watched TRAP laws go into effect, and clinic doors shut. And still it wasn’t any less shocking: in part because as people we have a hard time imagining the way tragedy will feel, and in part because the knowledge of what would follow the patch-work approach to abortion access was too much to grapple with. At least for me. When that unthinkable decision finally came down, it was like a dam broke and all that horror became our shared reality.

I’ve had a full year to process this nightmare, a full year to figure out my role in fighting back. I read and listen to everything I can. I, as Jessica Valenti suggests in her daily newsletter (which is a must read), talk to someone about abortion almost daily. I have this compulsive need to be a witness to every story pregnant people have the strength to release, opening themselves up to an increasingly hostile country, despite the fact that a majority of Americans – 61%, in fact – believe that people should have access to abortions. That number is continuing to rise, with more and more people believing pregnant folks should have access to abortions later into their pregnancy. On this one year anniversary of the antidemocratic decision made by the Supreme Court, I find myself thinking about abortion and all the ways in which my feelings around it have changed.

There was a point in time where I was not bothered by the belief some held that what we all want is for there to not have to be any abortions, that until that point we have to protect abortion access for everyone. A year after Roe v. Wade was overturned I can definitively say that is a crock of shit. First of all, there’s no reality in which there’s no need for abortions. No matter how universal and affordable access to contraception is, there will always be unplanned, and unwanted, pregnancies. That is simply a fact. And if we live in a society where we believe all people have the right to self determination and bodily autonomy, then we live in a society where people get access to the healthcare they need without shame, no questions asked. Secondly, miscarriages happen. Quite often, actually. Sometimes they happen later in pregnancy. And at that point, doctors do a dilation and curettage (D&C) to remove tissue from inside the uterus. Doctors also perform D&Cs during surgical abortions. The difference between having a miscarriage and an abortion is sometimes, though not always, a difference in treating a wanted versus an unwanted pregnancy. So saying that we find D&Cs acceptable or desirable in the case of a miscarriage and unacceptable or undesirable in the case of a surgical abortion is us assigning an ethical and moral valuation to a healthcare decision that should ideally be made outside the influence of those feelings. There is nothing ethically or morally wrong about choosing to end a pregnancy. And I don’t think we shouldn’t think glowingly about a world existing in which abortions aren’t needed. Abortions are needed. Abortions are a fact of life.

I think people should be able to access abortions at any point during their pregnancy. People who are getting abortions late in their pregnancies are doing so because something traumatic has happened. It is likely that either the fetus has developed a potentially fatal abnormality or the pregnant person is at risk of death if they carry that pregnancy to term. If we truly believe abortion is healthcare, then abortion is healthcare at any and all points in pregnancy. And to me, that means that when we fight for abortion access, we fight for abortion access for every single person, whether they are in the first trimester or the third.

A year in, I don’t believe in compromise on this issue. I will not entertain a conversation with someone who tries to argue the point that abortions need to be legislated by the government. I don’t want to hear about “viability.” Yes, abortion needs to be protected, but that need only exists because the religious right has been permitted to define and lead the conversation for decades. Our entire national debate on this issue has been, and continues to be, carried out on their terms. In the past I think I was less outspoken about this, more interested in not seeming unreasonable. I also think I internalized some of the language because I’ve been steeped in it for so long. But now I realize that the unreasonable position is people thinking they have any right whatsoever to insert their religious or political beliefs into other people’s healthcare decisions. The only unreasonable position is calling yourself “pro-life” when you are forcing people to remain pregnant when they don’t wish to be, or when it is physically, mentally or financially dangerous for them to remain so.

Before this past year, I don’t think I ever truly thought about how accessible I want contraception and abortion to be. Vending machines that dispense the morning after pill? Yes please. Free contraception for everyone? Absolutely. Walk-in abortion services? Sounds great. The safe use of abortion pills being taught in health classes? Don’t threaten me with a good time! I want reproductive healthcare to be simple and inexpensive to access, and I want the government to do nothing more than make sure that those pathways are clear of Christo-facist bullshit.

I also have realized over this past year that we are all currently living in a failing state. I know, I know, it sounds alarmist and ridiculous. But that’s what people said about the overturning of Roe before it happened and look where we are now. (And that’s ignoring what the reproductive rights landscape was before Roe was overturned which, let’s be honest, was a shit show.) We are living in a country where the majority of Americans believe abortion should be legal at least in the first trimester. The number of people who believe it should be legal in the second trimester, though lower than those who believe it should be legal in the first, jumped significantly in the past year. And yet, countless state governments are passing bans and pushing ballot measures that are explicitly against the wishes of the voters. In Ohio, for example, the state government is putting forth a ballot measure to try and increase the percentage of voters needed to amend the state constitution from a simple majority to 60% of voters. Ballot measures such as these are being used by Republican-led state legislatures across the country to keep voters from enshrining the right to an abortion into state constitutions. The GOP knows that abortions are popular even among Republican voters, and they are doing everything in their power to make sure voters don’t get to decide this issue. This is wholly undemocratic, but if they are successful they will take control of more than just access to reproductive healthcare.

There’s more I’m forgetting, I’m sure. It comes in fits and starts. But suffice it to say it has been A YEAR. I’ve cried a lot. I’ve raged. I’ve felt like everything is pointless. And sometimes, I still feel that way. But I also believe that knowledge is power and I will keep learning and will try to share more often and maybe, hopefully, one day we will have more good news that bad.

But in the meantime, fuck the Supreme Court. And fuck the Republican Party.

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Trauma is a Mother Fucker

30 Sep

This has been an especially rough week. Few weeks, actually. I remember a while back I read this article that summarized a study that had been carried out on Vietnam Vets. Please excuse my lapse in memory since I read this a long time ago and am a little fuzzy on the details but the gist of it is as follows:

Following the Vietnam War, some social scientists questioned a number of soldiers returning from battle. They asked them specific questions about their experiences, what happened, how they felt. They took detailed notes, took down their names and said they would follow up in a few decades time. The years passed and then, 30 or 40 years later, they tracked down the people that they could find and asked the exact same questions they had asked upon their initial return. The vets fell distinctly into two different groups: those whose memories had changed, and those whose memories had not. They had all experienced some horrible things while overseas but some of them had the distinct markers of trauma and some of them did not. Those whose memories had changed over time – who in hindsight saw their experience at war through rose-colored glasses – had not developed PTSD. It was the returnees who explained scenarios exactly as they had decades before, those who remembered all the details of specific events as if they had happened just yesterday, that were suffering the longterm psychological effects of war.

I think about that study a lot in regards to myself and my life. What do I have unwavering memory of and what has faded and changed. I’ve been thinking about it a lot these past few weeks as we have read about Christine Blasey Ford and as we watched her speak before the Senate Judicial Committee. I thought about it while she talked about her hippocampus and the fact that she installed a second front door in her home. You see, we never forget. Trauma simply does not allow for that.

But there’s more there than just that. I have been watching as the women in my life have struggled. How we have all been sad and in pain; how we have had old wounds torn open; how we have seen women on the subway, walking down the street, in cafes huddled over their phones crying. We all know why. It is because all of us, or at least most of us, have either been or almost been Christine Blasey Ford. We have either reported our experiences, not reported our experiences, or tried to report our experiences and been turned away or dissuaded. Her story is not just hers it is mine, it is yours, it is all of ours. How do I figure? I’ll tell you.

Last night I finished an especially busy shift at work and decided to sit down and have a shift drink and a chat with my coworkers. I was sitting at the bar talking to my friend to my left when I felt a quick *tap tap* on my right shoulder. I turned but no one was there. And then I saw hands and realized that the man who had tapped me had then used my distraction to place one hand on either side of me on the bar, essentially trapping me in my seat. I was immediately transported back to my senior year in college when at a frat party a “friend” of mine, upset with me for who knows what reason (he always seemed to have a reason) trapped me against a wall by placing one hand on either side of my shoulders and leaning his body towards me, making escape feel impossible. Not that it matters but I’ll say it anyway: he was drunk, I was not. And I know that because he had tricked me into driving our mutual friend to the airport at 3 in the morning because he wanted to enjoy the party; he knew me well enough to know I was too responsible, even at 21, to put my friends at risk or cause someone to miss their flight home. I don’t remember how long we stood like that, me cowering and him talking loudly at me before I broke free, he lost interest or someone came to my rescue. But I specifically remembered that feeling of knowing that anything could happen, anything could be done to me in that moment and I would have very little ability to stop it. I experienced that feeling again last night and I realized something.

The man who trapped me wasn’t trying to scare me. He wasn’t trying to make me feel powerless or intimidate me. He was just treating me the way a lot of people treat and think of women: as slightly less human than men. My personal space wasn’t his concern, nor my personal safety. He could do what he wanted because even though we are not friends and have never had more than casual conversation he owns me a little bit. He is entitled to me. And even though he might not have been actively thinking that in the moment, or been actively trying to make me feel like I had  no right to take up space, that’s exactly what he did. He reminded me in that small yet aggressive action that I, and women in general, are only permitted to taking up exactly the amount of space a man deems necessary and that amount of space is subject to change at any time depending on any specific man’s mood or level of intoxication.

Let’s bring it back a little. Back when the #MeToo movement had its second life (it was originally conceived by Tarana Burke and, surprise surprise, co-opted by wealthy white women) a lot of people were afraid of an impending sex panic. How will men ride in elevators with women? How will they hit on us? How will they interview for and secure jobs? How will they have sex? How will they do all of this when any woman at any time can accuse them of sexual misconduct, sexual assault or rape and ruin their lives? Clearly women are unhinged and it is the men who are really at risk here. But let me remind you of something:

  • Donald Trump has 16 credible accusations of sexual misconduct, assault and rape and he is the president of the United States (vomit)
  • Larry Nassar sexually assaulted 400 women and counting; he was first accused back in 1997 and nothing was done for 20 years
  • Louis C.K. jerked off in front of women, stopped performing for 9 months and then walked on stage at the Comedy Cellar here in New York City and got a standing ovation before he even opened his mouth
  • Bill Cosby was sentenced 3-10 years in prison for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand. He drugged and assaulted or raped other women as well, something he admitted to in front of a grand jury in the early 2000s
  • Brett Kavanaugh had been accused of rape by 3 women – one of whom detailed “train rapes” that he and his childhood friend Mark Judge participated in – and there is a very good chance he will be confirmed and end up with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court

So I guess what I am trying to tell you is this: yes, things have been changing. Yes, women are being heard now (whether or not they are being believed is still up for debate). But remind yourself which women are being heard. And remind yourself that the entire country just watched, transfixed, as a giant man baby blubbered to a group of politicians about how his life was being ruined.  And while you’re thinking about that, don’t forget about the woman who had carefully, and respectfully, testified earlier that morning about how her life had been turned upside down by actions taken by a young Brett Kavanaugh. She wasn’t just effected by this now, in 2018. She has been dealing with this, and living with it, since the early 1980s. While every one is saying that we need due process, that we cannot “just believe the victims,” that she is probably part of some conspiracy to keep the court from becoming more conservative just remember that it is Dr. Ford who was hacked, it is Dr. Ford who is being called a slut and a liar, it is Dr. Ford who had to move her family out of their home and hire protection. She is not guaranteed a right to space, to her story and to her humanity. None of us are. And trauma? Trauma doesn’t allow us to forget. That is what this is about.

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