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Reproductive Rights, Abortion, & Societal Division

Real American Fervor

 

It’s atypical that I speak outwardly (on the internet) about extremely hot topics, but the 2019 Alabama abortion ban has got me in my feelings.


Not for the reasons that you may think.


Me in the ocean off Cartagena

In my opinion, this egregious and possibly heinous piece of legislation is another example of big government, heretofore The Machine, ensuring that we stay ensconced in our culty tribes (never forget that ‘culture’ is from the Latin ‘cult’ meaning to worship…government?). This tumultuous decade is riddled with examples of the machine insidiously (yet, not at all) finding absolutely perfect ways to keep the citizens in a constant state of uproar, fear, and division. We allow ourselves to be the marionettes controlled by the machine (of which media in all its form is the instigating enigma) and truly believe that we are still free thinking individuals. That time is long past. We are on our way to the peak of a massive social conflagration; does anyone beside me feel like we are the crumbled newspaper being tossed flippantly into the fire?


Let’s take a quick look at this fourth, both online and irl feminist wave (if these are out of order, my b, I was out of the country for most of 2016–2018):

  • #meToo || Weiner, Cosby, Weinstein, Spacey, C.K. et al, finally get found out in a big way, but who’s surprised? It’s not shocking that men often achieve their wants through power and control and typically, via sex. Not negating the facts that what they’ve done was gross behavior, moreso I’m truly surprised at the vitriol that was cast at them by the entire world for things that have been known as SOP (in all industries basically). My thing, why all the shock and awe? Axe the offenders and get on with it.

Then, you have others caught in the mass firings due to the vitriolic nature of tribal aggression and vengeance → Aziz Ansari had a bad date, for example. My point? What’s true anymore when the entire world is allowed to weigh in on how disciplinary action is handled?


Yikes. Don’t know about you, but I personally know of many a hetero man that have chosen to retreat entirely. Don’t want to respond to a Bumble message for fear of being too forward and having their profile blasted on Instagram (with tag!), not talking to seemingly single persons at bars, generally afraid to speak at all due to fear of intense backlash on their characters.

  • Women’s March(es) || Please don’t even get me started on these f**cking womens marches. Look, I’m a woman and I’m about women. But not to the exclusion of everyone tf else! I’ve heard a personal account, primarily sourced stories of male allies (hetero/homo/trans/non binary) trying to finagle their way into New York women’s march(es) and they were shamed out. They were taunted, bullied, and humiliated to the point of not only leaving, but having their perspectives change. Well, that wasn’t point was it? What about the women that tried to join a NYC march and were boxed out because they happened to be okay with the fact that Trump was our President? (Primary sourced). So now, it’s only certain women with certain beliefs and various levels of certainness. Because, what is certain?

Yikes. More societal division? Surprise, surprise.

  • Walk of no shame & #SlutWalks || I get it, the age old mantra that women should stop wearing skirts or that they shouldn’t talk about sex because this permits men to do what they wish with them, IS ABSOLUTE INSANITY. So, I’m into the idea of no shame walks & #slutwalk (thanks for that #AmberRose). Also, I can even tack on to the idea that we’re working to re-connote the idea of slut. It’s ironic, truly, I do understand the point.

But have you been in a high school lately? How about a middle school? Great, I have. I’ve been relief teaching for years; 2012–2014 and now in 2019. The change in these students is nuts. For example, girls are wearing: tube tops, crop tops, high heels!, tatted décolletages/thighs/underboobs. I’m not a sociologist, so I can’t go ahead and place blame in one area. But the combo of the aforementioned, social media, and various scantily young adult celebrities (Kylie to Cardi) …


Yikes. Another example of a great social change idea taken to the extreme, this time by our youth. Which, disheartens me greatly.


God forbid I say to any female friends in New York that I’m halfway interested in a sugar zaddy and/or marrying into money so I don’t have to work until retirement and/or that I’m into the idea of being a stay at home mom, when the time comes. I’m a traitor to our female forebears!


Yikes. I’ve kept my mouth shut because I’d rather not bother. Not here to convert my friends, just have them.

  • Kavanaugh || Gets appointed to Supreme Court, is conservative, may or may not have sexually assaulted Christine B Ford several decades prior, America goes wild. Kavanaugh shouldn’t and wouldn’t have been appointed in any other sort of more average job, right? OF COURSE NOT! This has been the default operating procedure for who even knows how long, Kavanaugh simply came up at a time in technology where everyone is aware of everything every single second.

Yikes. Everyone is a pundit, but I guess if it’s a Justice, everyone kind-of can be a pundit. Catch 22. I just still don’t like that it was a live streamed public hearing; too much.

  • The ladies we revere || (Probably) unbeknownst to a huge majority of left-leaners, they most likely have friends in their own circles that have decided to switch hit. Lefties certainly have friends that have right leaning views thanks to some of the women now touted throughout the machine for being the ones to admire (AOC, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren). Be ready to get unexpected answers if you go around asking your friends! #FairWarning.

Yikes. Follow who you want, but please work on not making anyone that blinks an eye to your convictions a leper. Some of your revered female leaders are still sus. Every woman doesn’t have to back representatives just because they’re female (sounds reminiscent to blacks voting for Obama, just because).

  • Late term abortion law passage in NY || Okay, now we’ve gotten to really abysmal times. Once the state of New York permitted late term abortion, truly all I heard was infanticide. I saw state governing representatives kowtowing to social movements for votes. Did any of the medical community toss in their more expert opinions? Additionally, were any consulted that weren’t already getting the short end of the stick due to the Affordable Care Act? Didn’t think so.

Yikes. Remember Gosnell. Also, yikes, democrats seek late term abortions and republicans seek early term abortions. Looks like a zero sum game, and I almost failed econ!

  • #birthstrikers || A new movement! Of women intentionally choosing not to procreate in protest of climate change and a variety of other markers that our world is in friggen shambles.

Yikes. Honestly, wtf is this.

  • Abortion ban in AL and other states || The recent legislation of abortion banning is, basically outrageous. Truly, it’s so hard to believe that I’m right back to my typical conspiratorial thinking. There has to be more here and trying overturn Roe v Wade. What else is in the works?

Yikes. A long timeline of ensuring a constant state of tribal division, man v woman, woman v woman, hetero v homo, trans v non trans, binary v non binary, the list goes on. If you’re not on my team, you deserve to have either your reputation get annihilated or worse. Can we take a moment to consider that somewhere, somehow there’s a scheme in here and we continually feed into the machine’s plan by eliciting the exact emotions they want. Craftily placing divides in every sub-group in a country that struggles to find its forever-identity seems like a nifty way to have a massive revolution and/or general civil war play out. And before you roll your eyes and simply breathe the name of our current president, understand that insidious shit like this is put into play years even decades in advance.


Reproductive rights should never be under the auspices of government (period), yet the US has the lowest birthrate in nearly four decades, regardless of the above points. As a wealthy western nation, our birth rate is still high in comparison to much of the world. What’s not happening is the replacement of 1:1, and this is typically what leads to some semblance of certainty in the labor market, research, essentially being a hegemonic leader (Because, #Merica). If we put the lens on of a conservative POV, then the idea of legacy and continuation is obvious and even understandable. I can see it, I am not thrilled by it, but if I come across a republican (I live in NJ, soooo) I’m not going to immediately presume they’re an anti-abortionst bigot white hick from somewhere in the heartland. I’m going to work to understand that they see our nation failing and flailing.


If the goal is not to stay ahead educationally (that’s already a lost cause), militarily, economically (losing this war too, albeit we have the best economic upturn we’ve seen in QUITE some time), environmentally (we’re not as bad as South East Asia, but we’re not ideal) — then shit yea, who cares if we’re not replacing ourselves with the next generation! As long as anyone can choose who they want to be and have sex with who they want and marry who they want, we are lit!


Personally, I care a few smidgens more about where we stand as a nation in comparison to others; as we, in fact, do have a free market capitalist system (which works when managed properly, in the same vein, has it ever been managed properly?) along with globalization as a tried and true ideology (and we’re on the loop back to closed markets → this is why history should be studied). I care about our military and respect that they chose to keep me and my family as safe as they can, I care about our education because eventually I’d love children but at this rate they will not be educated in the American urban public school system, I care about our economy and I shouldn’t have to say why, I care about our immigrants but I also think legal immigration works a bit better, I care about our environment more than I care about people in all honesty and I’d rather be in a place where that’s taken more seriously (Detroit, Toronto, Costa Rica). Will I lose friends because I think this way, probably. But you know, everyone presumes they know me because I’m a brown woman and that’s enough of a stereotyping agent. So, I’m basically over it.


I had an abortion in May 2018, in Mexico. I dealt with sexual harassment in the workplace for the first time, also in 2018, but in Argentina. I ceased hormonal birth control, after a decade of use, six years ago. I have been tracking my own cycle since and have never felt more feminine. In the mid 2000s craze of Gardasil, I still have HPV (along with a fair share of female friends). I lost my virginity at fifteen primarily due to peer pressure from friends and ended up in the hospital, dying twice, having an out of body experience, and waking up three days later to my mom reading in a chair next to me. I’ve donated my eggs for profit, which in retrospect, is a total racket, but who’s counting. Oh wait, you are counting? Let me retrace my steps.


I’ve been tracking my menstrual cycle because infusing hormones into my body wasn’t cutting it anymore, for me. Birth control hasn’t been around long enough to know the true long term effects, but the rate of infertility is pretty interesting in comparison to generations that didn’t have hormonal birth control (or GMO foods, or 72 vaccinations before two, but I digress). So when I decided to have coitus while I was ovulating, I knew that my likelihood for conceiving was HIGH AF. Albeit protected, I had a gut feeling within the first 24 hours. But I’d been sexual for over a decade and never had this crop up before, I figured I was trippin. By three weeks I was certain, enlisted a bilingual friend to accompany me to a doctor in a country where it’s not only illegal, but hella Catholic. Thank god money talks because I situated that, with much anxiety, uncertainty, sadness, disappointment, guilt and shame. I do not wish this on anyone because it was the worst and highly invasive. But, I am glad that I was able to make the informed choice and get it done safely. I will still never use hormonal birth control.


I implore anyone reading this to please put more consideration into being your own advocate. I’m not one to protest in the streets, but I will not use pharmaceuticals to dictate my life either. You’d be remiss to believe that big pharma doesn’t have a hand in this greater reproductive right fight; The Machine at work. Track your cycle, buy a thermometer and take your temperature daily. Use protection. Oil pull to ensure you remain virus and bacteria free (I’m not a doctor, but just speaking from my own experiences) and stay off as many meds as you can muster. Splurge on a naturopath and get your levels checked annually. See if your eggs/semen is viable. Forewarned is forearmed, and we are just too damn reactionary. Take some power back into your lives and honestly, stop whining. I’m nestled in this low income bracket in a state where health insurance is mandatory, to my absolute chagrin, and guess what? I will still fly to, stay in, and get treated in Mexico and spend less on just as great, if not better, doctors. And that’s my choice. Thank you for respecting it.


The US is losing and the way to ensure that, is to keep our divided tribes as intact as possible. Reproductive rights, abortion, societal division, utter anarchy → what's waiting for us in the trenches, really?


Godspeed, to us.

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