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Well, this is certainly a shit week to be reminded of the fact that, 52 years ago today, the Supreme Court decided that women and others had a right to privacy in their persons in Roe v. Wade, only to be undone by the actions of the creep who, on Monday, crawled back into the White House and the three people he appointed to the bench who lied their little faces off about how they wouldn’t overturn it, only to get up there and do just that.
Also, on Monday, longtime Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards died. Today, NPR reported that the Trump administration had already scrubbed tons of search results for “abortion” from the Department of Health and Human Services website and taken down the ReproductiveRights.gov site (archived) put up by the Biden administration after the Supreme Court overturned Roe.
It doesn’t feel good. I don’t feel good. I’m having a hard time, frankly, centering my brain on this and not last night’s episode of “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.” Because frankly, I’d really rather think about literally anything in the world other than this. What I’d like to have for dinner, what I need to get at the grocery store, whether or not I will even be able to walk in the Aquazzura pumps I bought to take my mind off the inauguration (a friend said “Maybe if you break your leg wearing them you could wear them while you’re in a wheelchair?”), what things I need to take to the tailor, what the cat’s doing, whether or not I will have enough people for my trivia team for a fundraiser next week, whether or not I should get up and make more coffee, or what my sister is doing right now and what she thinks of what happened on last night’s “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”
This is actually quite unusual for me because, despite having fairly severe ADHD, I am usually very comfortable thinking about, writing about, and discussing upsetting topics (in case you hadn’t noticed) — especially when it comes to reproductive rights.
Abortion is now fully banned in 12 states and heavily restricted in seven more. Over the past two years we’ve heard stories, near-constantly, about horrific things happening to not only those who need abortions but for those who require miscarriage care. We have to listen to endless lies about post-birth abortions, both from people who know they are lying and those who are sure they aren’t (and it’s hard to know which is worse). We have to sit here with the knowledge that there are states in which adults are suing the FDA to revoke their approval of abortion medication because, they claim, they are harmed by the lack of teen pregnancies. Like, teenagers aren’t getting knocked up as much as they would like, and this is something they are actually mad about.
Couldn’t they just, I don’t know, stream old seasons of “Teen Mom” if that’s an itch they need to scratch that badly? Wouldn’t that be enough?
It’s a whole ass, motherfucking slog and if we’re going to keep chipping away at things and making them better, we have to get used to the fact that it is, indeed, a slog. There are going to be days when we have no energy and we don’t want to hear about it and would much rather think of something more innocuous or just scream endlessly into the void (or our pillows). We have to remember it because we need to set a timer on those feelings so we can continue to fight, and that’s gonna go for everything the next four years.
So here’s a bit of good-ish news, because we all need it right now.
Senate Democrats just (like an hour ago) blocked the Republicans’ disingenuous “Born Alive” bill, which they imagined was some kind of incredible “gotcha” because “who would vote against that?” People who know it’s bullshit, that’s who! The bill sought to make it illegal for doctors to murder babies born alive during abortions, which is not so much a real thing that happens as it is something they want people to believe happens. So yay! Good job on that!
A recent study found that more people are migrating from states that don’t have abortion access to those that do — a reversal of trends from the way things were going before Roe was overturned. According to the study, “[t]his implies that abortion bans resulted in a loss of about 128,700 residents across the 13 states with such laws in the year following the Dobbs decision.” Perhaps if we can keep that trend going, and even do more to make it easier for those who want to move to get out and get to a safe haven state, we could even make a dent in the Electoral College. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Personally, I’d recommend Vermont — there’s skiing, there’s ice cream, there’s abortion, there’s a lot of space and also only three electoral votes.
Another study showed that a majority of Americans across the United States support increased access to abortion medication.
In Kentucky, two legislators from Louisville have filed bills to include exceptions to the state’s total ban of abortion — for rape, incest and nonviable fetuses. That is, I suppose, something.
Maryland enshrined the right to abortion in their state constitution.
The Virginia Senate passed a resolution to include that right in theirs as well.
As bad as it seems, there will always be some things that are getting better somewhere. There will always be people to look to who are out there fighting and doing good and trying their best, and I will be one of them and so will you.
“One day, our children and grandchildren may ask us,” Cecile Richards said at the Democratic National Convention last August, “‘When it was all on the line, what did you do?’ And the only acceptable answer is, everything we could.”
And the truth is, on some days, like today, it’s really going to suck, but we’re gonna do it anyway. Because there’s no way we can do anything else.
OPEN THREAD.
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