To steal a line from Roxane Gay’s recent article, I am raging. When news broke shortly before I went to bed on Monday night about the leaked Supreme Court decision. I struggled with which emoji represented my feelings on Facebook. I know that seems utterly silly at this moment, but I wished I could have chosen more than one. Ultimately I chose Pissed Off, but Angry, and, more truthfully, Heartbroken could also represent me. I feel my spirit has been broken by what will most likely be coming in the next month to this country.
This wasn’t much of a surprise, although I’d hoped the day wouldn’t come. I’ve been nagging my husband off and on for years to think about leaving America or least move to a Blue state, as the Republicans have become more radicalized in this country. We may live in a Blue city, but that makes little difference with Ohio becoming increasingly out of touch.
What incenses me the most from the anti-choice groups is their belief that, as one of our Ohio politicians recently said – it’s an “opportunity.” Just last night on the PBS Newshour, the Arkansas attorney general, when presented with the statistics of Arkansas’ childhood poverty rates and how their foster system is already overwhelmed, was asked if the state had a plan for all these new unwanted babies. There of course was no plan, but the woman went on and on, talking about how they’d love these children and about families who’ve adopted kids are always thanking her. As usual, these politicians claim they’ll love these children, but we all know that once born, there won’t be love or even assistance given to the mothers or families.
These states who will outlaw abortion are not prepared for the additional babies that women can’t afford, nor are they prepared for the unnecessary deaths of women trying to end their pregnancies one way or another. They aren’t prepared for the additional crime that poverty creates. Most importantly they aren’t prepared for the generational trauma that this stripping of civil rights will have on women and their children, and grandchildren.
During the early part of the pandemic I began doing ancestry research, hoping to find some close enough foreign connection to give me dual citizenship. I know it sounds ridiculous, and didn’t have the outcome I’d hoped for. Still, it was informative to find out things about both sides of my family I didn’t know.
I was born into a dysfunctional family (yes, I know, most of us are) with a big age difference between my older siblings and me, and between my parents. Both my parents suffered from childhood trauma, not that that was acknowledged in their generation. My mother’s mother died when she was young, and while her father had tried to keep the family together, he couldn’t. She and her siblings were all adopted separately, and while on paper it would look like she went to a good home, she didn’t. I doubt she would have ever written a letter of thanks to her attorney general.
My father was the second of ten children born in rural Florida in the late 1920s. One of the things I learned in my ancestry research was that my paternal grandfather had been married and had two children prior to marrying my grandmother. They divorced, and my grandfather married a younger woman, and moved from Alabama to Florida. While that wasn’t a huge surprise, although probably not the norm in those days, it did make me wonder what would have happened if my grandmother had also divorced, or at least left her husband.
My paternal grandmother died before I was born, and at least one story my mother told me years ago made the woman sound bitter against her husband. That seems understandable. He was very good at getting her pregnant, but had no interest in being a father or to even take care of the family financially (by the way, none of the states that will be outlawing abortion have any plans to make men who impregnate women take responsibility for their actions). This caused my father to not have parental role models, as I can’t imagine his mother had much time to nurture him with more and more children being thrust upon her with no money. His father only seemed interested in fishing and going after younger and younger females. I don’t know if I ever met the man, but from what I recall being whispered at his funeral, which I didn’t fully understand at the time, he wasn’t a good man.
This impoverished household, in a time with no social safety nets, caused my father to not be able to enjoy being a child either. He left school way too early in order to help take care of his family. He’d bragged to my mother when they were dating that he had an account at the general store when he was I believe twelve years old. I’m sure the bragging was a way of coping with an awful situation. Nowadays a child wouldn’t be able to so easily drop out of school, but I can see that they would look to find their own ways to escape such poverty and help out in ways that could lead them to crime. The anti-abortion crusaders never mention that either, although I recall the Freakonomics documentary discussing it.
At a certain point in life it becomes unseemly to complain about your parents or use them as an excuse. I know I’ve made countless mistakes, made by my own poor decision-making, but I also know that not a day goes by that I don’t believe fervently that I would have been better off, been more likely to be a more functioning and whole human being, if I hadn’t been raised by people who’d experienced such trauma. I think that’s part of the reason I never wanted kids – I didn’t want to hurt them the way I had been. While I’m thankful I never had to make such a choice as abortion, I am glad that I lived my reproductive years in a country where women had choices, to both contraceptives and abortion. I fear both options for women will be ending.