The Roe v. Wade Draft Puts The Emotional Burden Women Bear On Display
Justice Alito may have avoided calling 50 years of women’s rights “damaging” with a little therapy
“I matter. I matter equally. Not if only. Not as long as.”- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Adichie tells us in her feminist manifesto that the premise for being a feminist is that worth is tied to no condition.
For example: “ I only matter as long as I bear children.”
That seems like the mood of the moment, doesn’t it?
It’s been a long day of crying, getting angry, and becoming very tired, all wrapped up in a nice little bow with Elizabeth Warren yelling about how she is angry because this will not affect wealthy women.
I love Elizabeth Warren.
She is right.
On the most basic level, this will not affect wealthy women or even women that are well off enough to afford traveling to get a legal abortion.
In the coming months, in this fight, I want to amplify the voices of women who are poor. Who are raising children alone. Who were abused and raped. Who will be left with no choice but to bear a child they did not want because the nearest abortion clinic is now 500 miles away.
Today, I want to name something a little less tangible. The psychological effect of Roe being overturned is hard to articulate, but I’m going to try, and I’m only going to speak for myself.
I can’t know how it affected other women, but I know how it affected me.
The only other time I’ve ever cried like I cried this morning was when I realized in 2018 that I had been sexually assaulted 3 months prior.
I cried the way people who are being treated as less than human cry.
We come into the world never having a notion that we may not have bodily autonomy. We are taught to set boundaries. We are taught that our bodies are sacred. We are taught that our bodies are vessels for something bigger than us- God, spirit, universe, what have you.
At some point, most girls and women, and men as well, have their bodily autonomy ripped away from them by force.
The man that tried to claim my sovereignty took what he wanted without asking.
This feels like that felt on a much bigger scale.
In healing from trauma, I realized that no one will ever be able to take my sovereignty, my autonomy. I understand in the same beat that many people are going to try.
Right now, the highest court in this country is trying to regulate the bodies of 150 million+ women in the name of saving lives.
As I said to my partner earlier, it’s not like women are skipping with glee to get an abortion.
Abortion is already heavy and for many, shameful. There are already people who need a better hobby harassing you outside a Planned Parenthood when you go in to make an appointment.
Women get abortions for many reasons, including
- rape and incest
- not being ready to be a parent
- not being healthy enough to carry a child
- carrying a child that would not live long outside of the womb
- many more that are absolutely no one’s business
I am tired of carrying the emotional burden that many men are putting onto women.
My assailant blamed me for the charges I brought against him.
The men(2 of whom were accused of sexual assault before sitting on the SCOTUS) and Amy Coney Barrett who are behind the majority draft blame women for being anything more than vessels to bear children.
Overturning Roe v. Wade is not taking the path of love.
In her book All About Love, bell hooks says,” estrangement from feelings makes it easier for men to lie because they are often in a trance state, utilizing survival strategies of asserting manhood they learned as boys. This inability to connect with others carries with it an inability to assume responsibility for causing pain. This denial is most evident in cases where men seek to justify extreme violence towards those less powerful, usually women, by suggesting they are the ones who are really victimized by females.”
I believe we are seeing the loud minority finally get what they’ve wanted since Roe passed: anti-abortion laws that are an example of extreme violence in the name of saving lives and blaming women for getting abortions in the first place, allowing men and unborn children to become the victims.
The real problem with overturning Roe is that it will not prevent abortions. More women will die due to unsafe abortions, and that blood will be on the hands of the members of the SCOTUS that voted to overturn Roe.
The sad part is I don’t think any of them value the lives of women enough to care.
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