Roe V Wade Officially Overturned – What the Hell is Happening?

I’ve collected my thoughts and I’m ready to share. Kind of. Sort of. Although a part of me wants to censor myself, compose myself in a more polite way and present my thoughts in a calm and collected matter, everything happening right now is too important. This all matters too much. And whenever I censor myself I risk losing my emotion and my thoughts so here we go!

First off I want to start off with – Congratulations and F**k You! To everyone on the other side. To everyone that thinks Roe V Wade being overturned was a good thing. Congratulations, you won. You got what you wanted. You won a battle that if left alone had absolutely no impact on your life. No impact on you, but will now ruin the lives of millions of women around the country.

You don’t support abortion, you don’t believe in it? Great, good for you. Don’t get one. No one is making you support abortion or get an abortion, but you do not have the right to tell anyone what they can and cannot do with their bodies. It is their body, no one else’s.

A corpse officially has more rights in this country than I do. You can’t harvest a dead person’s organs to save a child’s life, but if I didn’t live in California and happened to live in an anti-abortion state and I got pregnant, no matter the circumstances, I would be forced to carry that baby to term. I no longer have bodily autonomy, but a dead person does. If I was rapped or unwell or not ready for a baby, I would have no choice, but if I’m dead I can tell you all to “Fuck off!” and leave my organs alone. That is bullshit.

Friday, the Supreme Court officially overturned Roe V. Wade. I knew this was coming. I’ve feared for it for years (Another “Fuck You” to everyone who told me I was overreacting in 2016) and was pretty much told it was going to happen in May, but that knowledge, knowing it was coming didn’t make the blow any easier.

The breaking news was literally the first thing I saw as I woke up on Friday morning. My alarm went off, I shut it off, proceeded to check my notifications and there it was “Roe V. Wade Overturned.” I went numb, and then I cried, and then I got pissed before I cried some more. I tried to focus, to get work done, but my day-to-day responsibilities felt trivial. How the hell could this actually happen?

I managed to get focused long enough to get through a few hours of work and then finally gave up and decided to channel my rage into housework and then a workout, but that all still didn’t help. I was still angry, and scared, and sad, and overwhelmed. I still am, although I think anger is beginning to take the lead over all other emotions.

As I mentioned, I’m lucky and I live in California. I’m married and have been in a committed relationship for over 10 years. Not that I want kids any time soon, but if it happened it wouldn’t ruin things and if I didn’t want to keep it I have access to resources, for now. But I still hurt and I am still scared for the other women around the country. The women that are now going to be forced to carry a child into the world or be forced to take risky steps to control their own bodies (Anti-abortion laws don’t stop abortions, they only stop safe ones.).

I hurt for my mom and her generation that already fought this battle. All the women in the 60s and 70s that fought for the right to abortion. All the women that died because we didn’t have the right, yet.

I’m scared for the future and for my nieces growing up in a post-Roe world. Right now we’re safe in California, but for how long? I’ve already heard talk from the other side out outlawing abortion completely in the country.

I’m also scared about what will be next, what right will be stripped away now? There’s talk of attacking same-sex marriage, contraceptives, interracial marriage, and even desegregation. What the fuck is going on in this country! While the rest of the world is racing into the future, we’re trying to get back to the 1950s?

Many, if not most of the people I love most in my life are part of the LGBTQ Community. I have friends and family that depend on contraceptives for more than preventing pregnancy. And I am in an interracial marriage. And desegregation? As a child who grew up in the 90s in a very diverse community, with friends from everywhere, this almost doesn’t even compute in my brain. Like what? All of this is crazy. This is insane.

I spent yesterday morning at a pro-choice rally in downtown LA. This wasn’t my first and it won’t be my last. I’m not sure how this gets fixed, but something has to happen and I’m ready to fight for however long it takes. We all deserve better.