You know this past month has been kinda bizarre in my life. See I was born in 1973, and thank God my mom is a Catholic and is prolife because if not, I might not have been born. See that is about when abortion became legal in the United States. I was definitley an oops. I am 17 years younger than my eldest sibling and the sibling closest to may age is nine years my senior. Then I came. Ooops. And aboriton has also been legal my entire life.
In June, when it was overturned, I went through a kind of disbelief. My friend Jamie also told me she was going through a similar depression. I think many people were.
I was like holy crap, everything I just feared would happen to this country since 2015 has begun. See I saw this coming way back then, when Trump ran for president. I knew that the prolife voters would put him in office, as they did. I also knew he'd appoint conservative justices and that this could possibly happen, and it did. It really had happened. I was not some leftist lunatic all those years. I actually knew this was coming, and it came. I was just paying attention. People we all need to pay better attention.
See I think abortion is upsetting on many levels. Up until I was thirty, I identified as prolife. I almost protested a few times even. But then I had a student go through something before my eyes of which she had no control. Well this experienced changed me forever. I had a spiritual epiphany, and I learned I would never judge anyone on this issue ever again because sometimes I simply just had no clue and did not know what was really going on, and really, it was none of my business.
I also teach college-aged women. One in three of them are raped. One in three: 33 percent. Mostly by people they know. This has changed me. Why in America and higher ed do we allow our women to be the most harmed by sexual violence in our country other than transgender people? (That stat is 1 in 2). I am never going to be okay with this. Never. And I will work to change this for the rest of my life. College-aged women should not be the most harmed in our society. That is so beyond screwed up and totally shows how much work we have to do in the phallic ivory tower.
I have been teaching for 27 years, both high school and college. Never once in my time as a teacher has any young person come to me for counsel for an unwanted pregnancy. See they know that I would say have the baby and put it up for adoption. So if they are even considering an abortion, they don't come to me. I am on facutly at a Catholic University, and even just with my Business Writing class I went off on a tangent about how abortion disproportionately affects minorities and the racist history of Planned Parenthood and eugenics and Margaret Sanger. Sorry Feminist and liberal friends - see I told you I was a huge prolifer til 30. I know the prolife side too. And they aren't wrong on some of it.
A sidenote Planned Parenthood should just start over with a new name like Women's Health. But I digress.
With that said, I don't judge the women in my life who have shared their stories. Who am I to judge? I had an ectopic pregnancy at 26. We were married. I wanted this baby. It was also 9/11. There was no baby. Even the church understood this. America should then.
Of course that changed me. I hated that that happened to me, but now I think it gives me a degree of empathy for women that I would not otherwise have. I wanted that baby. I even named him. I am not sure if it would have been a male or female, but to me I named him Michael, my favorite name. And hopefully I have a baby in heaven. He would be 21 today. And I mourn this more than you would think, and it's been two decades. I think all women mourn a death of their child their entire life. All women.
Anyway, I digress. So this month has been so bizarre because I've been kind of attacked. Two of my best friends literally kicked me out of a car for not supporting Trump. I was on one of my tirades about the future for women in America. And yes, I was saying that Trump put the current Supreme Court in. One said, "I will kick you the F$%* out of my car if you don't shut up." Nice friend huh? I have since found out she is very sick, so I forgive her and am praying for her. I am a real best friend. In the days of Uber and cell phones, kicking one out of a car is not as big of a threat as it might have once been. I opened the door and just walked out onto Wilmington Pike. Why are people so angry? I'd never kick a friend out of my car for not agreeing with me politically. That is insane. I walked to Elsa's on the Border for dinner and actually made a friend there. I got myself home safely.
Then, the guy I was seeing heard this story, and we literally broke up over it. That's an entirely different blog post though about this heart of mine that keeps breaking. Damn you Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big.
Then, a male I graduated from my doctoral program with whom I thought was my friend, went in total disrespect mode. I will leave it at that. In one of his tirades, he no lie screamed at me about my domestic duties. What? He said he was yelling at me about professional matters - that I should be publishing more, which I guess I am thankful for that he believes in me and is challenging and pushing me -- but then why is he bringing up my domestic duties? This is surreal stuff people. Surreal.
And most recently I have been told that I am pro abortion and that someone else is praying that I make it to heaven. What? I am not pro abortion. I have never one time identifed myself that way or called myself that or posted about being pro abortion. Those are loaded words. In fact, true story - I couldn't vote for Obama the second time because at the DNC that year there were pro abortion signs from Planned Parenthood, and I just could never support those words.
I do, however, believe women and children need proper healthcare. And for this I will fight.
See this is not a black and white issue. It is not a blanket issue, where it all fits nightly under one cover. This is an extremely complicated issue, and I just do not think this one size fits all is the answer.
This is an either or fallacy. Derrida says that language creates this. Although life is not binary, language uses the binary to explain things. But the thing is the binary is too limiting. If a person is 5 ft 6, are they tall or short? They are neither. See why the binary doesn't work. Derrida blames this on the limitations of human language. Perhaps he is right. But it's time to stop this either or binary thinking. I always tell my students, there is a lot of grey matter. Use it. It's called your brain.
It is just too complicated. Only doctors and women and yes men together should make decisions. Yes men should have a say. Yes men should be both fathers and l dads!!!!!! The state should not be governing or limiting any health choices in a free America. Remember the rumors of death panels with Obamacare? Wasn't that the arugment from the right then? Or the vaccine mandate so many of my friends hated and protested against with their temporary Facebook statuses? Wasn’t that about medical freedom? Isn't this overturning of Roe vs. Wade the state controlling access to healthcare in a way? Just making you think. I get the unborn need a voice. I do get that too. Of course I do. My life’s work is teaching children. That’s about another 290 blogposts though.
I also am an English professor, with a Master's in English literature. So I have read A Handmaid's Tale. And I have watched some, not all, of the Hulu series. It’s honestly too dark for me, but they just took women's rights away in 2022 America, so maybe I should rewatch it. And yes, many Americans are not okay with this. I believe this is the first time in American history that the Supreme Court actually took rights away from us.
No lie. I was in Walmart by the Dayton Mall in probably April of 2020, that time you know when everyone including myself was hoarding toilet paper, meat, and canned goods. I had this huge cart full of groceries. So did everyone else. People were so kind that day though, I remember. Then, the credit card machine and entire money system stopped working. And I literally thought, “oh my gosh Margaret Atwood predicted this.” I was afraid they took our money away. That happens to women in A Handmaid's Tale. So, call us paranoid, but to the people who have watched this or read this novella, Atwood sadly seems propehetic and we are terrified of what they will take away from women or men or Americans in general next?
I have to go into my classroom in a few weeks and face these young women, majority of whom are also Catholic, and know that I had more rights than they do. And this to me is very, very sad. See Women's Rights are Human Rights.
So, I am not pro abortion; however, I am pro freedom and women and children. And I also know that systemic oppression exists and there is a huge correlation between it and abortion. And I also know that when abortion is legal, women actually have LESS or is it FEWER - sorry other English profs — that one always gets me. And I also know that abortion is still going to happen now, just not legally or safely in the states that ban it.
So please don't call everyone who sees this is a completely complicated issue as pro abortion. When it was said to me, I called the person out and said you know that is just cruel. But that is the state of America right now. Somehow the rhetoric has just become cruel. The cruelest I’ve ever seen I’m my 49 years. Gosh I wonder how that happened? Just kidding. With a PhD in leadership, I pray daily the right leader emerges very soon. These years of madness need to go. No offense, but okay boomers who are in their eighties running for political positions- please don’t. Time to retire.
Some people may be pro abortion I guess. The current state of humanity never fails to surprise me. I’m not sure I know any who identify that way though. But the majority probably do not. We just want women and all people to have autonomy, as no one really knows what another life is going through, ever. And who are you or me to judge? That’s God’s job and he forgives us anyway. At least that’s what I have been taught and believe.
But I am just over this red/blue divide. I am neither. I am not red. I am not blue. If anything, I'm purple. The church's teachings are both red and blue. Half of the Catholics are Republican and half of them are Democrat. President Biden is Catholic, although my Catholic circle refuses to accept that fact. Let's start a Purple Party. The Purple Party for Freedom. Our flag is both red and blue. Most Americans are purple. We cannot let these extremes divide us and take us down as a nation. It is time to put our country first again, above these extreme party lines. My conservative friends don't like that I'm so liberal. My liberal friends think I am too conservative and not liberal enough. It is so bizarre. I have never voted down party lines. Ever. I always vote on people and issues. But I am so over you party over country people. If we keep on this trajectory, we won't have a country to fight for anymore.
I do, as an American, believe in freedom. And we need to fight for all of our freedoms. We cannot keep letting both sides take them away. We need freedom of speech. We need religious freedom, and we need freedom in healthcare. And that my friends is putting country over party. Keep our freedoms to remain free. Maybe that's really what people are fighting about. Maybe we are all actually more alike than different.
No comments:
Post a Comment