I’ve never had an abortion. But I know and love many women who have. And as I listened to their experiences, I remember feeling relieved and grateful that we lived in a country where they had the autonomy and ability to make choices about their bodies, their futures, their lives.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade has cast a pall on anything I could or would be writing. I started a new job this month at Modern Retail and it’s truly a dream gig — writing about the roller coaster of consumerism and late capitalism is an exciting intellectual challenge for me. But on Friday, I found myself unable to share the stories that I was so excited to complete hours earlier. It just all feels kind of small and farcical in the face of a decision that will ruin lives, and even end them.
Many people will find reasons to play down the impact this decision will have — because they live in a blue state, because they don’t think people should get abortions, because they don’t think that doctors will stop performing abortions. But women are already getting turned away from clinics. Nearly two dozen states have already or will soon be banning abortion in some capacity. People there going through miscarriages may not be able to access lifesaving care. I don’t know how you look at those facts and can say we live in a free society.
Yet hopelessness gets us nowhere.
We are not going to reach a fairer, more just society, by posting angry Instagram stories (though we can and should in the name of awareness and expression). We can and will get there by protesting, by voting, by legislating — and we can only have the strength to make those changes if we are able to stand in our own truth and wholeness, if we are able to show up for our communities and participate where we can.
Instead of sharing my links today, here’s a roundup of thoughts, writings, and songs that are helping me process this news and consider my values in this moment:
“When time turns this moment to dust/I just hope that I’m proud of the woman I was/When the lines of tomorrow are drawn/Can I live with the side that I choose to be on?” —Better Than We Found It” - Maren Morris
“Those who argue that this decision won’t actually change things much—an instinct you’ll find on both sides of the political divide—are blind to the ways in which state-level anti-abortion crusades have already turned pregnancy into punishment, and the ways in which the situation is poised to become much worse.” —Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker, 6/24/22
"I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own." —Audre Lorde
“I've paddled upstream where the river ran/I've turned sticks and stones to an olive branch/I've made a full house from a shitty hand/Yet, here I am/Still gotta be bigger than the bigger man.” —”Bigger Man” -Joy Oladokun
“My best hope is that people continue to get angrier and that the folks who have been fighting so hard for so long, and are already tired, find some strength to keep fighting and also to mobilize others, especially youth, along the way.” —Amanda Shires, Rolling Stone, 6/3/22
“Don't you know/Talking bout a revolution, it sounds like a whisper.” —“Talking Bout a Revolution” -Tracy Chapman
With love and solidarity,