Abortion Wars

Criminalising abortion will accelerate the demise of our species. Hateful control rots the fabric of our society and disregards human rights. Thank god abortion was legal in the US when I had mine.

We are literally going to hell in a handbasket. Waking up in New Zealand this morning is a privilege I can’t even begin to describe. My American sisters are not sharing my sentiments about their homeland right now. Along with Afghan women, they just got herded closer to the gas chamber.

I hope it is dawning on everyone that Gilead is here now. Gilead translates generally as ‘hill of testimony’ and the nauseating irony shouldn’t be lost on anyone. There is a mountain of testimony for why the US supreme court should NEVER have overturned Roe v Wade and it makes me wonder how Margaret Atwood knew what was coming before the rest of the world did. I think of how hypnotised and immobilised we all are by The Handmaid’s Tale on Neon when it should be propelling us out of our front doors and into immediate action.

When I was eighteen years old, I was living on a beach in the US with my boyfriend. We were doing whatever work was around and lots of cocaine as well. I was flirting with danger on so many levels, including using a fake green card so I could work. I also played pregnancy roulette after I ran out of my contraceptive pill, and lost.

I was a long way from home, living hand to mouth with a person who was unlikely to be part of my future, and now I had an unwanted pregnancy as well. I wasn’t what you would call good parent material at this point. I entertained the idea of continuing the pregnancy for about seven and a half minutes before I came to my senses. Unfortunately, during my attempts to access an abortion I inadvertently ended up at an anti-abortion clinic, which just added another level of unwanted complexity to my process.

I eventually managed to find the right clinic and become legally and safely non-pregnant again. In the recovery room after the termination, I was cared for by women who nodded with understanding and soft smiles when I lamented “the pitfalls of dallying with men.”

The abominable process playing out in the US right now is the brainchild of men and it is yet another attempt to suppress our feminine power. I don’t care how many women supporting this fucked decision think it is about ‘pro-life’ because it isn’t. They are simply supporting toxic patriarchal objectives and are shamefully complicit in misogyny. As I discuss in ‘Ministry for the Oppression of Women’ these women are harming other women and it is unforgivable.

Some women have a much clearer conscience and are mobilising. Sisters Glennon & Amanda Doyle are founders of ‘Together Rising’ an organisation that “transforms collective heartbreak into effective action” and this is what they’re doing today.

I adore some men but I am so over the patriarchy. I detest toxic masculinity and I have anaphylaxis to misogyny. It is time for us to fight like Beth Dutton with bones of steel and a heart of tarnished gold. Glennon and Amanda are our real-life Beth Duttons and we need to get behind their work in whatever way we can. This is a crucial moment in history that will most likely lead to the ultimate standoff.

Emma Gannon eloquently discusses the right to not have children in her newsletter ‘The Hyphen’. I have three daughters and only one of them wants to have children. They have reasons for that - our planet is fucking dying. They don’t want to bring more humans into a future that is looking to be a living hell on earth. They have a right to intimacy and they have a right to be safe. If pregnancy disrupts either of these things then they should have a right to terminate that pregnancy - how dare it be taken away from them.

Let’s go back to Gilead;

The US Constitution has been replaced by a system of duties and privileges implemented in a hierarchy of social classes, with every former U.S. citizen being assigned to a particular class and expected (and/or forced) to fulfil certain roles.

Gilead is a patriarchal society, where only men have access to higher education. Women are not allowed to have titles or deeds to property in their name and cannot have a career unless said career is specifically assigned to them by the Gilead leadership. Men are also the only ones eligible to hold political office.

Women are regarded as second-class citizens as they must submit to the authority of men. Most female classes are forbidden to read or write. The only women who are still allowed to read and write are the Aunts. Although Aunts are allowed to be literate, they are still inferior in rank to the Wives, who are considered the paramount rank a woman can hold in Gilead.

I think you can see where I’m going with this. Civil liberties and rights are a thing of the past in this setting. What started with the rounding up of all ‘fertile’ women left in the country ended with the obliteration of freedom. What is happening in the US is the manifestation of this dystopia unless we do something about it now.