feminizzle

Today is the 33rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

What makes this anniversary, and the current political climate facing reproductive rights, so interesting to me is that Roe v. Wade and I are the same age. So throughout my entire lifetime, I have had the privilege of knowing that I had more alternatives available to me than my sisters from previous generations. Even though I am a lesbian, and I don’t have to deal with the fear of unplanned pregnancy on a regular basis, I also am not unaware that I live in the Patriarchizzle, and considering the amount of violence aimed at women…anything is possible.

I do not know what life would be like without Roe v. Wade protecting women’s autonomy and control over their own destinies, nor do I want to. Yet, increasingly, I have had to consider that very reality, watching Samuel Alito slide through the Judicial Committee hearings like a greased pig, with nary a challenge to his lies and obfuscation. Watching the “lawmakers” in my own state put forth legislation to illegalize abortion without even a headnod toward exceptions for rape and incest. Watching the self-righteous “ProLife” movement targeting women at clinics, lying to draw them into their “crisis pregnancy centers” to proselytize, terrify and sometimes even STALK them after they leave. Watching politicians allow constant infringements upon women’s rights based on “moral” grounds, while they justify mass murder of brown people the world over in the pursuit of resources and power.

I watch this all…and my blood boils and my anger spills over.

The fight to overturn RVW has NOTHING to do with morality, or babies, or God, or anything else that the Crazy Rightwing NutjobsTM have used as justification for their perpetual attack on women’s rights. If it did, they would not be so hellbent on taking away birth control as well.

It’s about CONTROL, stupid! Control over the most basic functions of a woman’s body. Compulsory pregnancy has been, throughout history, the most convenient method of keeping women occupied, subjugated and (most importantly for the p-izzle) POWERLESS. For those seeking to maintain power, it is an easy way to keep HALF of the world’s population under the thumb of what they have defined as a biological imperative. They will use anything: economics, jails, war, whatever…but how easy to just use women’s own bodies as a ready-made prison to keep us under their thumb. And if you can write it off as “God’s will”, well even better…

I have read my history, and I see the battles of my sisters to gain control over their bodies as a legacy that I must uphold. My state has become a battleground, and I proudly take my place on the frontlines to maintain the gains my sisters won, and to fight for even more.

So on this anniversary…this day that marks a lifetime I have shared with Roe v. Wade…I promise to fight with everything I have…for my mothers, my sisters, my friends, my lover and for those who are still struggling for even the most basic rights in countries across the world.

These things I must do, because the legacy of Roe v. Wade is also our shared history of fighting for women's freedom. Sisters for 33 years...a lifetime lived in solidarity and struggle.