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My mother brought us marching, mailing, and leafletting for civil rights when we were little. Moving forward with more global understanding, my peers and I, then a band of scruffy teens, protested the war in Viet Nam. The demand for reproductive rights was also growing fiercer. This fight was deeply and immediately personal.
It was exhilarating when abortion was legalized in New York State in 1970. The empowerment of a successful battle against patriarchal control swirled with the energy of youthful sexuality. And then Roe. One less risk factor to constrain the lives of girls and women. We believed we had/could still make a difference. Over decades we grew complacent.
Attacks on reproductive autonomy had accelerated even before Trump took the White House and gunned for the judiciary. We feared but couldn’t fully take in how endangered authentic expression of self for all kinds of bodies would soon be.
In my office and out, we anxiously asked each other, what can we do? Where do we turn? We didn’t get out in front of it. Could we have gotten out in front of it? The urgency of the socio-political crashing into the “blursday” of pandemic life. Unchecked Police brutality. Fights for justice and their backlash. A new kind of vigilance required. I debate the merits with my analytic superego when patients and I share resources for study and action. Who am I trying to keep from drowning?
Biden’s win could neither mitigate our terror nor create a sufficient backstop. SB 8 passed. The Dobbs draft was leaked. We took to the streets – enraged and mourning deaths past and future. Rape and incest aside (as if we could), the cascade of harm continues – crucial healthcare criminalized and medical education gutted. We watch a gluttonous competition as politicians climb over each other to enact hateful legislation. So glad we live here, someone says. I question the reliance on state lines for protective/projective work. A cherry-picked judge in Texas will soon rule on nation-wide access