ROE V. WADE OVERTURNED

49 years after we got some autonomy, some long-overdue rights, and some equality, today is the day the Supreme Court of the United States voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.

This was a monumental decision where the court ruled that the U.S. Constitution generally protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion. The decision struck down many federal and state abortion laws and led to an ongoing abortion debate in our country about whether, or to what extent, abortion should be legal, as well as who would decide the legality of abortion, and what the role of religion played in the matter.

The case came about in 1969 from a woman in Texas named Norma who went by the pseudonym Jane Roe She was pregnant with her third child and wanted an abortion but abortion was illegal except when necessary to save the mother's life. Her attorneys filed a lawsuit on her behalf claiming that Texas's abortion laws were unconstitutional and her case made it all the way to the Supreme Court. It took just over 25 months - more than 2 years - for Norma’s case to become what we’d know as Roe v. Wade and it was her persistence, the passion, experience, and diligence of her legal team, and so many others than afforded pregnant persons the rights they had… until today.

I feel helpless, hopeless, angry, numb, fragile, afraid, defeated, gloomy, surprised, not surprised, lost, displaced, like a foreigner in my own country, stuck in the mud… or maybe it’s quicksand.

I. Am. Upset.

The United States currently has more freedom and/or protection around the right to bear arms, than the right to have a say in your own reproductive journey. There are more hoops to jump through - even before today’s ruling - to actually get an appointment for abortion than to purchase a semi-automatic weapon. For some, there’s a psychological exam, for sure a physical exam, and more to be done before having an abortion. Yet someone can walk into a store, buy a weapon, buy hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and go on about their day without being questioned, going through a questionnaire, or being given a second thought about what they need the items for and what their intent is with them. Sure, not everyone who buys a gun and some bullets is a mass killer, not everyone is out buying rifles and bump stocks to kill hundreds at a time. But it happens, doesn’t it? It KEEPS happening. Why is a uterus more accessible to politicians and people who have NO BUSINESS discussing the reproductive rights of someone else than the motive behind why someone is buying a gun? Just like abortion is far from a black and white issue, I know gun control isn’t either. It’s simply an example. I’m pissed about it. All of it.

I’ll be writing more about this. For sure. This is just the beginning, what came to mind at the moment.