Flash forward 40 years.
It is 11:50pm on a hot Tuesday night in Austin, Texas.
I am crowded into the rotunda of the state capitol building with thousands of
other people who are all wearing orange shirts, scarves and hair ribbons and
screaming at the top of their lungs. Around me are half a dozen friends my age,
and we are screaming too while we sweat and check news feeds on our phones as
the clock nears midnight. My ears are vibrating in pain at the sheer volume of
the voices—so guttural and primal and sustained—raised in a deafening unison
roar. Then the clock strikes twelve, and impossibly, the volume of the screaming
grows even louder. I have no idea if we’ve been successful in killing #SB5, but
it damn sure feels like we’ve done something
important by coming together and raising our voices in this way. I go home exhausted but too energized to sleep. I am wide awake.
---
Flash forward one week.
I’m still hoarse. My hair continues to stand up when I
see photos or videos or read well-written accounts of what happened on Tuesday,June 25th in the Texas state capitol building. They are calling it “The
People’s Filibuster.” And having been part of it, is still very much with me
and many, many others.
The whole thing—and all of the action that has followed—has
made me do a lot of reflecting, and I found myself wondering: Why am I so damn passionate
about the abortion issue? Why did I wear my headphones listening to Texas state
senator Wendy Davis filibuster against anti-abortion legislation on the senate
floor almost all day while I was at work?
Why did I rush down to the capitol that night when I saw the 3rd
point of order raised against Senator Davis—and the intense reaction to what
was going on in the rotunda—live on the 10 o’clock news? Why did I stand there for
hours and hours with thousands of orange-clad strangers who, like me, desperately
wanted to be heard that night? Why did I go back to the capitol this
week to stand with 6,000 others there to protest the blatantly anti-woman
legislation that is back in front of the Texas legislature?
The answer to all these questions is simple: Because this issue—women’s accessibility to safe, affordable LEGAL gynecological services including pregnancy termination—is not only important to women, it says a great deal about how women are viewed in our society.
A bit of background: When I became sexually active in
my late teens, I had access to inexpensive birth control via the Planned
Parenthood clinic in the town where I was attending college. I also got regular
“well woman” check-ups at that same clinic (required in order to maintain my
birth control prescription), and I was able to do all this without my parents’
or my partner’s permission or intervention. To me, taking care of my lady business was simply a part of
becoming an independent young woman. It never occurred to me that what I was
doing with regard to my reproductive health would (our could) ever be anyone else’s
business. Because I had no memory of what life had been life prior to the pill
or legalized abortion, I never considered what I was doing a fragile freedom
that might be threatened or even disappear. In essence, I’d received all the
spoils of a war that I knew little about. And, like many women my age, I became
complacent and assumed my reproductive rights were protected. But clearly, I was wrong.
It didn’t happen overnight—the most insidious change
rarely does. Over the past two decades, the lines between the church and the
statehouse have become so blurred that the foundational principle of the
separation of church and state has become little more than a hollow footnote in
America. Simultaneously, politicians who run on platforms of “limited government” and
“personal freedom” while also advocating for the increased government
intrusion into women’s reproductive organs have continued to win local,
statewide and national elections. The result of this perfect theocratic storm
has been that, little by little, the rights that my grandmother’s and mother’s
generation fought so hard to secure are being stripped away. Like many other
women in America, I now live in a state where a very vocal, organized, fundamentalist
religious minority has managed to bring us to the brink of passing some of the
most restrictive anti-abortion legislation in the entire country. Meanwhile,
our state leaders and GOP legislators have the gall to smile their lipless smiles and tell us that it’s all
for own good. And this condescending “Don’t you worry your pretty little head
about it… we know what’s best for you” stance is insulting, infuriating bullshit.
Let me clarify that I am NOT “pro-abortion” as I’m sure
some would be quick to label me. Come ON!! Who in their right minds would wish
that they or someone they love would ever EVER have to undergo an abortion? No one,
that’s who. That’s why the bogus-yet-frequently-repeated claim that those of us
who are pro-choice are actually “pro-abortion” makes my blood boil. It’s just
fucking stupid, and if you say it, I have no choice but to think that you’re an
ill-informed, myopic idiot.
I have a young daughter, and the thought of her ever facing the agonizing choices
that come with an unplanned or unsustainable pregnancy is enough to make my
stomach turn and bring me to tears. As a parent, my ultimate goals are to
protect her, guide her toward good choices in her life, and to do everything
within my power to ensure she is safe, happy and healthy. And I hope beyond
description that she will never undergo an abortion procedure. But as a realist
who resides on planet Earth, I also understand and accept that no matter how much praying anyone does, unplanned and unsustainable
pregnancies can–and do--happen to females of child-bearing age regardless of
their race, address, financial situation, sexual history, religion, marital status, or
political affiliation. And yes, that potentially includes my daughter. What I hope for her is to never have to consider having an abortion, but if she
does, I want her to have options and access and not be shamed or criminalized
for her choice. Period.
The people of my grandmothers’ and mothers’ generations
fought hard to ensure that first, women were granted access to birth control
and later, that the cloak of danger and criminality that surrounded abortion
was lifted. And after years of admitedly taking these freedoms for granted, I now have all of
their fight inside me.
Also inside me is the fight of that indignant 19 year
old casually picking up her birth control pills at the women’s clinic who
cannot fathom why my—or any other woman’s--reproductive choices should be
anyone else’s damn business.
Now I have a daughter who is nearly 9 years old. She deserves the same reproductive freedoms that I and all of the other American women
of my generation have been guaranteed as a legal right. And Hell yes, I’ve got
her fight inside of me too.
So even if the Texas legislature wins this battle, they
now have a full-fledged war on their hands. I'm ready for the fight, and I'm bringing lots of people with me.
