I remember when Roe vs. Wade came to be.
I was young, discovering that women had no agency concerning their bodies and that it took the courts to establish it. Something I knew men would never have accepted.
Being raised Catholic in 1973, in my world, abortion was spoken about at Sunday mass with cruel judgement. The sermon never examined the big picture of why, nor was there compassion. Instead, the messaging was demonic towards women who even considered it. Those of the cloth mercilessly crucifying women revealing what unconditional Love was not, and that’s where they lost me.
At the time, I had a girlfriend in need of an abortion. She struggled with the issue—a pregnancy resulting from date rape. Clandestinely, with a friend in tow, she finally located a clinic and obtained one. Being Catholic, she was drowning in guilt, labelled and damned by those who discovered her actions but were unaware of her truth. She was distressed by circumstances that were beyond her control. The psychological and emotional turmoil she underwent was crushing. She was raped and punished further because of it.
The church and others have nothing but judgment around the topic. Empathy isn’t in the equation for women who struggled with the choices that brought them to this door. Compassion was absent from the church’s acumen, still today, unless it fits their interpretation. Perhaps they best review their book, in particular John 8:7. “He that is without sin among you let him first cast a stone at her.” Theirs is an institution far from innocent, fraught with sexual abuse, alcoholism, and nepotism, alongside a history of violations against Indigenous children and residential schools. Personally, they have no say on the matter. It’s not one of theology but of health and safety.
Free choice is a right granted to each of us by the Universe/Life/God, and nobody has the right to dictate otherwise. It’s a sacred gift we must recognize. Abortion isn’t birth control. It’s navigating one’s life.
Why men are in the equation informing women what actions they can take over their bodies is absurd. It is every woman’s free choice to do whatever she wants with her body. Women aren’t telling men what to do with their junk. I get that all life is precious, but that is a tiny slice of a big pie, and if we adhere to that, why are people consuming animals? You can’t pick and choose, designing an argument that has resonance to justify one’s own beliefs. That’s outrageous.
There’s a lot of stuff shoved up a woman’s Minky, from tampons to scopes, but there are two things she need not accommodate in that First Chakra. The first is religion, and the second is politics. Neither belongs in her nether regions, falsely believing it has governance.
My girlfriend ended up marrying and having a few kids. She could’ve died back then without having an abortion and would have been denied a beautiful family and life for which she has gratitude daily. I thought by the time I would be in my sixties that, as a society, we would transcend these situations and look upon them from a benevolent lens and as a health issue. Transcendence is taking what exists and surpassing it against a new backdrop of hope and possibility. However, that means people must be open and honest in facing their fears around such subjects which isn’t the case.
As for the religious Right concerning this issue, particularly south of the border, where politicians pontificate what should be in the law concerning this issue is ludicrous. These righteous individuals are focused on securing votes as the currency that supports their livelihood at the cost of demonstrating empathy for a woman’s circumstances.
Those in power looking to overturn Roe v. Wade and not fight for banning weapons are the criminals with blood on their hands. Abortion is a medical procedure that must be made available to women who need access. I witnessed my girlfriend’s pain beyond her actions, focused on the regret and disappointment of how her journey unfolded. These women need understanding and a health care system to assist them. If a man was raped and pregnant, you can be confident that there would be no issue in making sure accessibility not only existed but was widely available. But put women into the equation, pepper it with judgement, add a massive dollop of righteousness, and here we are.
The hypocrisy for me is fighting for the right to life while having such slack gun laws that once the babies are born, they can be slain. That’s the argument that everyone involved including the church should examine. Further, the resistance to saving our most vulnerable so that a politician’s funding is secured by the organization that supplies these weapons is madness.
The righteous who believe they know what God desires are beyond egoic. That is pure arrogance. We are all children of the Universe, and for some, their time here is meant to be brief. One must look through a wide lens of the Universe to fully understand that statement. Provide comfort and consideration for the women whose families love them and want them to be around. Don’t crucify them; no one has that right, especially when you’re not walking in their shoes.
As for a male opinion, the government has no jurisdiction over any woman’s garden. They’re not invited in and cannot thrust themselves in a woman’s private’s as that is no different from rape. Imposing its illusionary moral high ground where it doesn’t belong. We will never progress as a humanity if we remain stuck in a place of antiquated judgement. To care about unborn children only until they are born is insane.
The thing is, the issue of gun control runs parallel with this topic. Both are health and safety issues. When gun crimes transpire, the focus is on the mental health issue of the person pulling the trigger. But never on the mental health issue of the politicians who permit it to happen. By not instigating proactive change and being bankrupt in empathy, enabling children and adults to continue to be slaughtered so politicians making the decisions can benefit from their choices politically is criminal. To be so depleted in compassion is equally a mental health issue.
There is another war on, and it’s been raging for a long time, and it’s the war against common sense. Something I’ve written about some time ago. The ridiculous argument is that guns don’t kill people. People kill people. That’s true, the caveat being ‘with guns.’ Hello! An assault weapon is undoubtedly a weapon of war. No one needs to buy one as there’s no reason to own one.
When those who drafted the second amendment spoke about the right to bear arms, they were sporting muskets, not three-d printed guns, and certainly not AR-15-style assault rifles. I wonder how they would feel knowing their inked words cost the lives of many, including children. I don’t know if these guns are in Ukraine, but they’re in schools killing innocent children. How messed up is that? It’s unfathomable to me that parents should lose their little ones, that their family pets should be waiting at the door for their return, and that they are being laid to rest instead of eating cotton candy and giggling wildly at a waterpark.
As a grandmother and mother, no argument can justify the cost of one young life lost to guns, never mind all those that have crossed over due to gun violence to save those after them with the hope that change would come. These children and adults have left a wake-up call, and their passings cannot be taken in vain. However, those who can instigate change choose to be deaf and blind to it. It’s not about tweaking a law but redrafting it void of weapons. Ironically, Japan has hardly any gun violence valuing safety and owing its strict regulations courtesy of the US.
We can’t take the Bible literally. Nor can we take the second amendment at face value. This is where common sense intervenes, not literal interpretations overshadowing words drafted in a different century with dissimilar variables and intentions. Bearing arms isn’t a right. Human rights are food, shelter, freedom of opinion and expression, right to work, education, and safety. Guns are an unnecessary privilege. Common sense must intervene.
Gun–related injuries have become the leading cause of death among American children and adolescents ahead of motor vehicle crashes which is incomprehensible to me. My question remains, are the powers that be who are prepared to argue against Roe v. Wade and support the NRA ready to finally put in the necessary changes to end gun violence or continue slaughtering the children they believe they’re saving? Roe v. Wade is an autonomous ethical medical procedure period. It’s about health and safety, no different than the elimination of guns sparing those we love.
That is the core of these two issues because safety is a human right.
This is 100% true! I wrote a dissertation on Roe v Wade back in 1991. The controversy surrounding abortion back then was ridiculous. That has continued on some 21 years later is incomprehensible and unconscionable. No uterus, no opinion!