***Trigger warning: brief mention of sexual assault
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade I, like so many were gutted. Something as simple as choosing what goes on inside your body was now vulnerable, if not outright banned. I’m lucky, I live in New York which is a blue state, so my right to choose will likely not be revoked, but I am a minority. For so many women they have been reduced–their independence, their sovereignty disrespected. Yet again women are deemed less than; that they cannot make decisions for themselves. As a Lilith devotee I am outraged for my fellow women. Have we not fought tooth and nail to be treated even slightly equal as men? Have we not proven that we can “handle” ourselves? Again patriarchy needs to put women back under their rule.
Yes I am pro-choice. The choice to have an abortion is the choice to not be pregnant, to not bring life into this world, to honor yourself as a human being. In the case of tragedies and injustices of sexual assault, incest, and abuse, the punishment should not rest with the women should she become pregnant. Those who endure these traumas and find a lingering presence should be able to reclaim their stories. To me that is what being pro-choice means: the choice to write your own story; the right to control the way your life unfolds.
Those who argue against that choice claim that it is murder. That is one way to read that story, but I would counter that forcing someone into motherhood is it’s own kind of murder. Motherhood is an identity that many are privileged to don, but it can smother the woman who came before. That kind of shift in a story cannot be taken lightly and therefore should not be forced. It should be celebrated.
This contemporary moment holds so much fear. Project 2025 and conservative politicians hope to fully ban abortion, restrict birth control access, track reproductive health, and more. This would effectively plunge the US to Gilead. Our authorship over our lives would not be our own in this world; we would be at the mercy of those in power.
Life is a story that we get to write. There are so many turns it can take and combinations of plot points. To be in charge of your own story is to be human. If women cannot choose to whether bring a new character (a child) into their story or not then they are not human.
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The Affliction of Being Female 