I can't watch the news anymore... or at least I can't watch what passes for news by American standards. I can't read the newspaper. I can't visit Google news. I am completely and utterly fed up with what I am seeing. And I am angry.
I am a woman. I'm a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a relative, a coworker, a student, a neighbor, and an aquaintance. I could be any woman in America with how plain Jane I am. I'm not a powerful politician, an influential lobbyest, or a scholar. However, I am a woman with a voice, and as a woman I am fed up!
I am fed up being told that I am inferior because I am a woman who can birth babies and because of that fact I should do certain things. I am fed up with the pandering I see in the current election campaigns. I am fed up with "news organizations" who feel they need to spin everything. I am fed up with personhood laws restricting the rights of my fellow women. I am fed up with the restrictions I am seeing being placed on access to women's health. More importantly, I am fed up with other people thinking that they can make the "best" decision for ME!
I must need to check my passport and be sure that I reentered the United States back in October. I thought this was America... and I thought we were over this.
Where you stand on abortion or contraception shouldn't matter right now. What matters is the general trend of what we are seeing - women's rights being eroded left and right. What matters is what is going on in our legislatures. According to a recent FoxNews report (yeah, I know, but still it's a source plus they were quoting The Atlantic), there have been over 80 new pieces of legislation introduced in the past year that place restrictions on abortion. First it's mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds (way to go Texas!), then it's opt-out rights for companies to provide contraception coverage. Somehow, those states feel that they shouldn't "force" a company to provide coverage on something that they feel is morally wrong. Really - because we've all seen our companies make the right decisions lately haven't we? Seriously, what's next?
What matters is how we as women treat other women whose views differ from ours. I see some of the harshest criticism coming from women on staying at home versus going to work, breastfeeding versus bottle feeding, and now women's access to abortion and contraception.
Here's the thing... at my core, I don't believe in abortion. It's against every grain of consciousness that is in my body. However, that does not give me the right to dictate what is right or wrong for someone else. That is their decision to make and to come to terms with. And I support their right to make it, just as I support the stay at home moms and the working moms; the breastfeeding moms and the bottle feeding moms.
I'll leave you with this to ponder on your own.
"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me."
~ Martin Niemöller
