fuck this
And fuck Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg too.
I would like to preface this piece by saying this is not nihilism — I’m simply saying our faith and energy should be invested in each other instead of this system that does not care about us.
The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade today
Roe v. Wade is no more. We knew this was coming and yet I’m still baffled. In a country where little kids dying in school is just the “price we pay for freedom,” I don’t understand how we can pretend to care about the unborn ones. After seeing so many people celebrating the news, my mind instantly went to the viral quote from Methodist Pastor David Barnhart:
“The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.
It is so easy to pretend to care about kids when they aren’t born yet. Fuck you if you’re born poor though. That’s not MY problem — your mother shouldn’t have gotten knocked up in the first place. Provide comprehensive sex education and affordable birth control? No way — that’s against MY religion and why should I have to take on the responsibility for your sex life any way?! You were sexually assaulted? This is a blessing in disguise. And you’re probably lying. Provide government assistance for housing and food? Why are MY tax dollars being spent on some random child when I have kids at home to feed myself!
It’s a never ending vicious cycle. If you want to stop abortions (which you will never do), you need to provide comprehensive sex education and affordable birth control. If you don’t want to do that, then you need to provide resources to the mother and baby once they are born. If you don’t want to provide those resources than you need to allow for abortions. And so on and so on and so on. Sure, in a perfect world you could ban poor people sex and then only the most fit and responsible among us could reproduce and society would never have to take responsibility for each other. But the powers at be don’t really want that either — we need more workers in America — but that’s an entirely different conversation. There are so many intersecting consequences to this decision that I am simply not ready to dive into today.
I’m tired and I’m scared and I’m pissed. I’m tired of being told to “vote blue” no matter what when it doesn’t seem to make a goddamn difference. I’m scared of what’s to come next — if Clarence Thomas gets his way we’ll be seeing a ban on birth control and gay rights in the near future. I’m pissed off that this is our system. Trying to determine today’s laws on a document written 200+ years ago by men in their twenties who didn’t see women or black people as people is absolutely insane to me.
Trying to appeal to this system is futile — we only have each other. Be sad, get mad, vote, or don’t. But always help each other.
If you can you should:
I refuse to tell you to donate your money to any organization but if you’re financially able to, search #MutualAid (← you can click here for Twitter) on pretty much any social media site and help real people. I promise your $5 is going to be better spent by the black woman trying to feed her kids in North Carolina, than on Elizabeth Warren’s or Joe fucking Biden’s campaign.
Also, please visit Plan C Pills for more information on at-home abortion access.
Let’s continue to build a community of strength and protection. We only have each other.