The more things change, the more old white guys freak out. The more tightly they choose to try to restrict the liberties of others, the faster their own liberties will slip through their fingers. The shoe is going to be on the other foot for them and they have just realized that no matter how much they cheat, disenfranchise, and out and out lie, that having to share power is inevitable; they’re going to have to do it. This haste on their part to drag us back into a 1950’s era that never existed (unless you were white and male) is hopefully just the last spasm of idiocy from people determined to keep power and subjugate others by any means necessary.
I know, I know, simply everyone is talking about abortion rights these days. And it does not seem that anyone on either side is going to change their minds about it, so I thought I’d sit here and spit into the wind a little bit. What can I say, I’m a glutton for punishment.
But mostly, I’m angry. I’m terrified. Part of me, the angry ranty dancing self just wants to scream, “Kill! Crush! Destroy!” and that anger is so thunderously loud at the moment I might just ditch this whole screed and go punch things for a while. Until something is broken. I’m old, so being pregnant is not going to affect me any more, not unless God is playing Immaculate Deception with me, but this is a personal attack on the rights of my children, and that is not going to fly.
My daughter is 26 years old. She’s adamant that she doesn’t want kids, not now, not ever, and she laments the medical patriarchy that insists that she use birth control other than sterilization “in case she changes her mind.” This is the girl who disliked her name at age 2, and changed it legally 21 years later. Persistent as hell. She knows what she wants. But nobody is listening when she’s talking, not really, and the medical profession continues to tell her she doesn’t want the very thing she does want. It’s disrespectful. They do not hear her when she says she’s already had cancer, and thanks, no kids for me. As if she doesn’t already know her own mind. I respect her mind. I wish other people respected her choices, too. She's smart and quick and funny. And I won’t lie, I suppose grandchildren would be nice. Lots of my friends have grandchildren. It looks like fun. But the choice belongs to her, and I remind her of this often, especially on our way to the obligatory inquisitions, er, family gatherings and together we sweep through these occasions, warding off inquiries of future progeny, staring daggers of OMG at them when they raise the subject. “Look at the time,” we say and off we swoop.
Before the last presidential election my Girl had an IUD implanted, because, as I might have mentioned 3 or 12 times, she already knows what she wants, and the answer is not “kids.” And she trusted exactly zero elected people to ensure that nobody would question her bodily autonomy. She was aware of the tide turning against women’s rights. Smelled it in the wind. Turns out she was right. I agreed with her then. I agree even more strongly now.
And here’s the part where I threaten to rain ridicule on anyone who dares to “You’ve come a long way, baby,” me. We haven’t come a long way, at least not if you’re speaking of a woman’s right to self determine when/if she has a baby. Or another baby. Or what she wants without someone questioning not only what she wants, but her very ability to figure it out all by herself. The way life works, only women have babies, and somewhere in their limbic brain, this frightens some men so badly, that they feel the only way to even the score is to legislate the issue of reproduction, putting the Usual Order of the Patriarchy “in charge” of those little women who need their help.
My Girl is 26. When I had her, all those years ago, I was 36 and she was a surprise. After an 11 year baby hiatus, there I was, somewhat dismayed, at my peak earning power and pregnant again. Having made the mistake of not paying attention to the size of my spouse’s head prior to breeding with him, she was a planned C-section, because No, sorry, I don’t want to try that again since it didn’t go well the first time, natural is overrated and C-section is what I wanted to do. When I mentioned to my doctor (the new one I got while 7 months pregnant, because of a change in company health insurance plans) that I didn’t want any more children, and as long as he was rummaging around down there, maybe he could please slice those tubes so no more accidental children appeared for our family.
That fucker was offended by my request. Visibly. The first thing he asked was if I had discussed this with my husband. I had, and frankly, my behavior with this pregnancy was so hormonal that battle fatigue had set in and neither one of us wanted Round 3. When I told him that I had, indeed, discussed the issue, he came back at me……..right away, which, as an insurance biller, I found odd, because doctors don’t generally know what kind of coverage their patients have, unless someone tells them, much less the minutae of payment processing………….he said that my insurance wouldn’t pay for it as a medically necessary thing, and I’d have to wait a few days after having the baby. And I sat there, on the table, huge and clumsy in my flimsy paper gown, and I knew he was lying.
I didn’t call him on it, I just said, “Okay,” and took my Mad and myself home and made an appointment with my psychiatrist, who I see every few months because psychotropic medication is funny and needs minding. When I got to my psychiatrist’s office, Mad still in tow, I related to him what the ob/gyn guy told me about needing a note regarding a medical reason for sterilization, and that’s when Mad popped out of my mouth and said to him, “You tell that guy that the next baby I have goes in the toilet, that it would be a Very Bad idea for me to have more children, and So There.” So he obliged, with a chuckle, but he also understood that more children would most likely not help my mental state, either.
When I brought the note to my next ob/gyn appointment, I handed Dr. Patriarch the not terribly polite, but concise letter from my psychiatrist. Because it was sealed before it was handed to me, I am uncertain as to the precise wording. What I do remember, is watching his face as he read the letter, the way he glanced quickly at me, but didn’t meet my eyes, and said, “Oh. Heh. Yes. Well, we’ll do as you requested, and there is no need to add this note to your file, don’t worry.” And right then and there, he tossed that note in the wastebasket. And looked at me sideways again.
Medical necessity, my ass. Father, may I, it was. And still is. My daughter is fighting for her right to determine her future and her family just as hard as I was when she was born. And near as I can tell, it’s just getting worse.
We’re about 4 Republicans from, “Burn her! She’s a witch.” Again. Goddammit it, how did this happen?
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I was born at about the same time as the Pill came on the market. When I grew up, Nice Girls still Didn’t. But hormones are gonna hormone, and I was in love. (We are still friends, these many years later, so we’re not going to judge here.) But I knew that if I went to see my mother’s ob/gyn, I would get the bug zapper face, accompanied by a lecture to get married and have 4 kids and I won’t have time to worry about anything. That Sex is not a Toy. As though love is less when people are young, often discounted by older people, simply because they don’t remember how 16 felt.
Not wanting to feel the harsh electric zap of disapproval I knew would come with the exam, my boyfriend and I went to Planned Parenthood. Nobody gave us a hard time, nobody said, “You better not, this is bad for you,” the only thing they cautioned us about in any way was to warn us to use these condoms they gave us until after I cycled though til I was able to start the Pill. Through a span of 11 years, until I got married, got pregnant, and acquired real health insurance, Planned Parenthood was my provider of choice.
Planned Parenthood is also my daughter’s current choice of provider and a new office recently located to our part of the world. I noticed because there were people standing outside the building waving signs, occasionally spilling into the road, not minding their own business. This building is located several down from my dentist’s office. Because I know that I will be going to Planned Parenthood in the near future with her, and I am not going to have her run the Gamut of Claptrap alone, I checked it out the other day. It was the usual picketers, but I turned into the PP parking lot and got a free sample of what I might expect from these people who don’t seem to have any more constructive way to spend time, like maybe reading to kids in school, or feeding the homeless, you know, do something for the people who are already here. People who may some day have one of those fetuses they proclaim to love so much.
It was infuriating. At least I could to to Planned Parenthood in peace when I was her age. And, pre-angry, close on the heels of the vile Alabama decision, I’m sorry to admit I simply lost my temper when some lady waved her rosary beads at me and said, “Jesus loves you,” and I snarled, “Get yer jumped up plastic jeebus beads away from my face before I shove them up your ass,” and I drove off thinking that no way is my Girl going there alone.
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Even when I was young, I didn’t understand the Save the Bay-beez hysteria. Now I find it patently offensive and much more shrill. Desperate sounding. I wondered why it doesn’t occur to these people who want to make laws, ignorant of biology and seemingly proud of it, looking to score points and curry favor (campaign donations) from special interests, and corporations who wish appropriate rulings for their businesses that: a) women were here first and b) all the babies in the world won’t happen if their mother isn’t already alive.
It’s like trying to have eggs without chickens. The mind boggles. I never bought into the anti-choice people’s fear and shame based drivel, their near panic politics and underlying disrespect and hatred of women and the possibility that women might dare question the status quo, demand to be treated like people, you know, life, liberty, blah de blah, and not as incubators, something less than human. They’re afraid of our demands for seats at the table.
Bodily autonomy is a human right. Women are not chattel, not second-class citizens, and we have every right to walk this world on the path we choose for ourselves.