A few weeks ago I was standing at the downtown square with lots of other women, holding signs and shouting. One woman had a sign saying that she couldn’t believe she was still having to fight for the right to control her body. I understand that sentiment.
During that day, we rallied and listened to moving speeches, but I left not knowing what to do other than make what donations I could to various organizations helping with the fight. I also left the rally feeling slightly guilty, but fortunate, that I’d never been put in a situation where I either needed an abortion or had to help someone acquire one. When I was an adolescent I remember a neighbor telling my mother that her daughter-in-law was getting an abortion, not seeming to acknowledge that I was present, and maybe this wasn’t something I should be hearing. The woman and her husband had a child already, around my age, and they couldn’t afford another one. Strangely I don’t remember my mother having much to say about the situation, even though she had begun deciding by that time who would be going to hell (both me and my father) for not “giving their life to God.”
Around the same time, one of my older sisters inappropriately nudged me to try and convince one of her friends not to have an abortion. I complied, but had no idea what I was talking about, being a child myself. The woman had the abortion, and I think she and the unborn child are better off for it.
It’s hard not to feel powerless and impatient right now, waiting for the court to throw this country into turmoil like we’ve not seen before. The only winners will certainly be the lawyers.
We’re all going to pay in one way or another, as we begin to move further into our corners, physically and metaphorically. I know I personally don’t want to live in a state where I don’t have a say about what happens to my body. The Divided States of America here we come.
Last month, which seems so long ago, I was also consumed with who the leaker of the draft Supreme Court document was. I have a theory that I still feel is likely, even with my liberal bias, but as I’m not interested in being sued for libel, I’ll keep it to myself. I will say that I think it was an extreme conservative, who doesn’t work at the court, in an attempt to rally John Roberts back to the extreme conservative side on this matter (the scolding Wall Street Journal article is quite telling), or at least hold on to the remaining group via the final leak of the document.
I know some conservatives keep thinking it was a liberal who leaked the document, as the draft was ultimately published in Politico, but I think that may have been to divert attention from some conservatives. Plus, what better way to “own the Libs” then by publishing a document so extreme, yet having us all know that with the imbalance in the courts, that we’re mostly powerless to do anything at the moment. Even if we rise up and vote out every Republican, it took a long time to stack the courts in the conservative favor, and it will take time to undo it. I'm not sure any of us have this kind of patience. But please vote, no matter what else you do or don’t do this year.
Of course, a few weeks after the rally, and several more mass shootings, attention is now focused onto another issue that many of us still can’t believe we have to fight about, and are losing patience for. I really can’t understand why anyone would need or want to own an assault weapon, other than to kill a lot of people very quickly, and without much requisite for good aim. Yet many people in this country seem to have forgotten that the second amendment was written not for them to have military grade weapons so they can pretend they’re whatever action hero gets them excited, but rather when men had muskets (that had to be reloaded after each bullet was fired), and that there was a need for individuals to be in organized militia as we didn’t have 911 to call to come to our aide.
It was obvious to me that when Republicans refused to agree to any type of gun safety measure after Sandy Hook that nothing would change their minds. It appears more and more dead children haven’t made any difference.
While I’m not usually driven to paranoia, the two issues seem to have strangely combined in my mind, making me wonder if Republicans are trying to enforce pregnancies on women in order to offset the lives lost in all these never ending mass shootings. It sounds crazy, I know, but we are living in crazy times. Maybe some of these politicians actually think we really are living in the Matrix and that it doesn’t matter if someone dies so long as a replacement is found. I suppose that’s another version of replacement theory to be outraged by.
All of the madness just adds to my Summer of Rage. I know raging won’t help with any of this, but I don’t know how else to manage. The only other option is to become numb, which also isn’t helpful, but seems impossible to not subside into after hearing about more and more horrors we keep churning up for ourselves. If this is the Matrix, then I’d really like to be unplugged right about now.
That also seems unlikely. What seems the
most likely outcome is that more women will suffer and die thanks to horrible policies
that extremist politicians put in place. Those same politicians will also
refuse to end this carnage of gun violence playing out every day, non-stop.I, like many, will alternate between raging and numbness.
The question is will any of us have the patience to survive the world we’re living in, or will we be impatient to just have it all over with one way or another.