My body, my choice. Your body, my choice.
After having time to soak in the reality of the new Texas law that bans abortions, in which pregnancy surpasses merely six weeks, I am ready to confront how this affects me as a NY resident.
While copycat laws in other Republican states are itching to jump onto their governor’s desk to be signed into law, the federal government must grapple with what just happened, as well, and how the precedent case Roe v. Wade can easily be overturned.
No longer do women and other menstruating people have power over their bodies. Well, they never did before anyway. Men approve these laws that take away our power over our reproductive system, our skin, and our blood. Men leer at women on the street. Men target women and make them defenseless to assert power.
Men want power over women, and that has always been true. A blanket statement, but one that is hard to dispute. No, not all men. Just like not all cops. Not all Republicans. Not all Democrats. By now, many people have seen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on CNN rip apart Texas Governor Abbott’s defense of his bill. She argues:
“What this is about is controlling women’s bodies and controlling people who are not cis-gender men. This is about making sure that someone like me, as a woman, or any menstruating person in this country, cannot make decisions over their own body. And people like Governor Abbott and Mitch McConnell want to have more control over a woman’s body than that woman or that person has over themselves. What that shares with rape culture is that sexual assault is about the abuse of power, and sexual assault is about asserting control over another person. And the ease with which these men seek to do that to other people is atrocious.”
This is a game in which power goes to the victor. A man can rape a woman in the state of Texas and get away with it, while the woman is forced to bear this man’s child. What if this man is this woman’s brother? What if this man is this woman’s teacher? What if this man nearly killed this woman? Now, in the state of Texas, this woman must bear his baby, no matter the story behind the pregnancy.
I am inspired by another person’s discussion over this bill. Jessica Kent put out a video sharing her story of being forced to give birth in prison and then having to give up that baby into foster care until Kent was released a couple years later. While she was lucky to get her daughter back, she missed years with her. And Kent said in her video that she suffers from PTSD because of having to give birth in that manner and losing her baby, and that of course she loves her daughter, but it is in no way humane to force women to have babies while incarcerated and/or when the baby is a product of a painful, traumatic experience.
“If you were pro-life in Texas, you would not allow citizens to carry guns without permits. If you were pro-life in Texas, you wouldn’t have the death penalty.”
Kent then cites an earlier article that describes a proposed bill to adopt the death penalty for abortion.
“So pro-life, we will kill you.”
These two women are powerful. I admire their strength to speak their truths, the truth. So how does this affect me as a New Yorker again?
Oh yeah, I’m naturally a woman capable of giving birth even though I don’t want to. Not right now and most likely not in the future. The only baby I will probably ever have is the one I didn’t have, the one beaten out of me by the baby’s father, my abusive boyfriend at the time.
I was 19. He didn’t ask what I wanted. He took control. He was three times my size. I couldn’t move. Each punch to the gut edged us a little closer to denial and acceptance. I miscarried. He was happy. I cried on the dormitory bathroom floor. I flushed her down the toilet. He didn’t. Somehow, he had the power. He had the choice. I was helpless as I felt his fist against me. My ability to choose was taken away. My power over my own body was taken away.
This will very well be the fate of many young, scared women. There will still be abortions, whether people cross state lines, or more than likely, have unsafe abortions. What if the woman is pregnant and the man is furious? He will do whatever it takes to make sure that baby doesn’t see the light of day.
This is what pro-life looks like: abuse, maltreatment, fear, homelessness. Powerless.
In the state of Texas, part of the United States with the right to just freedoms, women cannot safely do what is best for themselves. Because women come in last, and women don’t have power, and women don’t have control. And women lost the right to their own bodies.
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