Can I Have Bodily Autonomy for My Birthday, Please?
I can’t believe I have to ask for it
It’s my birthday today. I’m now 58 years old. Yay me! I don’t feel old, but some days I sure do feel tired. Now, more than ever. It’s not a physical thing. It’s mental and emotional. Like, how are we still dealing with this bullshit in this day and age.
I was nine years old when Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. That was the world I grew up in. It’s gone now and I’m pissed.
Here’s the thing, if you’ve done the math: I’ve already come out the other side of menopause. I’m not ever going to face an unwanted pregnancy again. Been there, had the abortion, moved on. This isn’t about me.
It’s about my daughter, and my niece, and my future daughter-in-law, and my maybe someday grandchildren. It’s about every person capable of giving birth.
It’s about children who are raped and will be forced to have babies in places like Oklahoma.
It’s about other people’s ideas of religion being forced on us.
It’s about a good friend of mine who was refused tubal ligation in the 1990s when she was in her twenties and a single mother. The doctors and hospital said that she might want more babies later and she might get remarried and her hypothetical future husband should…
