Today I checked the mail on my way out the door to meet a friend only to find a fucking anti-abortion flyer stuck to the inside wall of the mailbox like a parasite.
No “trigger warning”, no, “DON’T OPEN THIS – A COMPLETE DIPSHIT JUST PUT IT IN YOUR MAILBOX” disclaimer. Just pictures of bloody fetuses beside copy that said something about “tens of thousands of children dying annually in abortions.”
I hate to play the role of Captain Obvious here but FETUSES AREN’T FUCKING CHILDREN.
And whose “life” are these people so “pro”? The FETUS’?
Jesus take the wheel.
I’m for the living. The independently breathing. The free-thinking and the emotion-feeling and the bill-paying and contributing to society. I’m for the woman – whose body transforms and whose hormones go nuts and who must labour and birth and nurse and love and comfort and sacrifice for the rest of her life.
As someone who has given life to two children, I know that this gig is not for those who don’t want it; I might just be the most pro-choice person you know.
I believe that a woman in a family who struggles to provide for their existing children should have the power to decide to terminate a pregnancy.
A woman who gets pregnant on a first date due to faulty contraception should have the power to decide to terminate a pregnancy.
A woman who was raped should have the power decide to terminate a pregnancy.
A woman who just doesn’t want kids should have the power to decide to terminate a pregnancy.
Is there any room for debate about abortion? Yes there is. But only between the walls of the homes of the people faced with the decision of whether or not to terminate the fucking pregnancy.
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Occasionally I take a break from watching Queer Eye in the evenings and switch on the news. For a while, the hottest topic was The American Supreme Court justice appointments and anytime people would report on it I would cringe because I knew what was coming next…
Men. Debating abortion. On air.
Hearing and seeing men debate abortion makes me feel like I’m going to vomit in my mouth.
It’s like physically watching the patriarchy get out of bed, stretch, and say “ah, another glorious day to govern female bodies without consulting the people who reside in them.”
Why are we moving in this direction again? Why are men discussing what we can and cannot do with our bodies? Didn’t we sort this shit out decades ago?
You know what this means though, don’t you? It means they’re terrified of us. They hate that we have the power to give and rescind life. They can’t stand that no matter how many institutions they have dominated and how many laws they have written in their favour that at the end of the day, the closest they’ve ever been to God is their own mother.
From the self-important, ignorant fools who lined my mailbox with their anti-abortion bullshit, to the people touting graphic homemade signs on busy street corners who subscribe to frighteningly anti-woman rhetoric, to the men whose job it is to write laws to police bodies they know nothing about, to the men debating women’s reproductive rights on television I say: GET A FUCKING GRIP.
Address the fact that you are completely intimidated by female power. Acknowledge that a fetus, by definition, does not a “child” make. And recognize that a woman who does not want to be pregnant will seek an abortion whether it is approved of by you or not because SHE HAS A LIFE AND IT MATTERS.
Ask yourself why her safety means less to you than a cluster of cells that may or may not one day morph into something that has a penis. And once you’ve done all that, call your mother and say you’re sorry for sorely undervaluing the place from whence you came.
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For those interested, consider calling or emailing [email protected] and/or your City Councillor to show support for the motion put forward by City Council that would make it an infraction for anti-abortion protesters to use their graphic signs in public spaces.
The motion is called:
MM44.35 Use of the Public Right of Way for Display of Graphic Images – by Councillor Sarah Doucette, seconded by Councillor Janet Davis.
http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItem
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100% agree with you.
It isn’t just abortion though is it? Take homosexuality for example. There are and were laws against it purely because some noisy people totally unaffected by it found it distasteful. Now countries are having votes on legalising same-sex marriages – as if they ever had the right to restrict them in the first place.
Bigots have hidden behind religion (and a one-sided definition of morality) for as long as people have been around.
What it boils down to is some busybodies can’t help themselves trying to control the lives of others even though those lives are none of that person’s business.