June 24, 2022

SUPREME COURT TURNS ITS BACK ON WOMEN - brackets on [[[ROE vs.WADE]]]

 Was working on another entry but I've been side-swiped by the news.

We knew the Supreme Court in its present formulation was going to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Of course we knew it. Without quite believing it. So it's no surprise.

But it's a profound shock to the system, our system, our rights, our safety, and the governance over our own bodies. 

Does a woman look forward to an abortion?  Hell NO, but there are times and circumstances when this procedure is necessary: from the quality of life of the mother and to avoid bringing an unwanted child into our fraught world to suffer its indignities. Not to mention forces majeures like rape, incest, underage pregnancies, poverty, too many children, drug addiction, illness.......Is it unfortunate to have to do it? Hell YES. But that doesn't mean a court can give freedom to individual States of the Union to determine what a woman chooses.  

I remember, and so do all of my friends and associates: back in the day women were butchered or butchered themselves and died of infection. Illegal abortions were highly dangerous, clandestine, unprotected. I knew women who travelled from other states to New York, where it was still 'illegal' but relatively easy to obtain and far safer -it was a place of refuge. A terrified, unhappy woman had to make the trip to New York - and it was still not truly legal. It was terrible. I helped one of them on her unhappy journey -- she came over from France in 1967 -- desolate and disoriented.

The court has closed a bracket on Roe vs. Wade --  a bracket that included a better, freer, remarkable period of time: despite horrible attacks on abortion clinics and their staff, it was legal, possible and relatively safe. 

Now it will be over in many states. Will this discourage courageous women from travelling to another state? No, but the poor, who can't afford the trip, and the young and powerless, who don't have the wherewithal, will suffer the most.

This is a shock. Off with the brackets, get back to sanity.