I've read a few diaries about abortion lately and I want to say something about it.
This is the way I feel. All women deserve the right to make their own decisions. Period. For some women, the decision is a little more complicated and stressful; for some women it's not.
And that's OK.
Please bear with my analogy after my grandson's favorite color squiggly.
I had to have an emergency appendectomy when I was 18 years old. I almost died due to no health care insurance. I was shunted off to a curtained waiting room to wait for my mother and sister to raise some money to pay for it.
I awoke from my coma with someone holding my shirt, backhanding me to wake me up, all the while yelling "murderers, murderers" as he alternated between his fear that I was too far gone to save and his effort to wake me. His name was Dr. Saba in Phoenix in 1962 and he saved my life, literally. He knew we were very poor and told my mother not to worry about paying him.
A couple of months later we were in a car accident. He discovered my mother had cancer. He treated her for her remaining months without pay. He arranged for my mother to have hospital care so we kids did not have to take care of her at home. My mother underwent experimental chemotherapy in exchange for hospital and nursing care.
There were no laws that provided obstacles to my surgery, only the obstacle of no money or insurance. But there are laws that provide every obstacle right wingers can think of to punish women for her medical decision about her body. Maybe they think if the punishment is harsh enough or if the patient is shamed that the abortion will not take place. Their claim is that women do not own their bodies, rather that the state owns it.
The diaries I've read in the past few days tell similar traumatic stories, but the stories are about a wanted or a needed abortion. For some it was a hard decision to make. For others it was not hard at all.
And that's perfectly fine. Remember that. It's perfectly fine to face similar situations and experience it differently.
We honor each other when we listen and accept each other's experience. We need each other.
I honor the women for whom it was no more difficult than a doctor's visit. I honor them and respect their right to make the right decision for themselves and to experience it in their own way.
I honor the women who agonized and felt guilty. I feel guilty and apologize to ants I have to kill, but that's me. If it's not you, that's OK because I honor your decision and I honor your experience.
The one thing we cannot do is to blame each other.
The one thing we cannot due is stop listening to each other, with respect, always with respect.
If we use terminology that makes someone uncomfortable, let's be gentle with one another when we bring our unease to the table. If I am the one who makes you uncomfortable, I promise to listen and understand what those feelings are, and to change my words if I need to.
I will listen and honor what you say.
We need each other.
I promise to bring this approach to the fight for gay rights. I am not gay so there is much you can teach me. I promise to bring this approach to the fight for civil rights, for all people, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans. Being white, there is a wealth of information you can teach me.
I am an old white woman so there is much for me to learn from all of you. When I hold out my hand to you it is open, palm up, waiting to receive.
To the people who reduce us to wombs, or to slaves, or to one color or one group, I offer you this:
1) I will fight you until I die. I will never stop fighting you. I am strong because I have sisters and brothers in this fight. We don't look like each other or talk like each other and we like it like that - we love our differences.
2) But you will not find us hopeless or helpless or weak. You will find us strong because we are together. We are family, this group and family comes first. We honor each other. We fight for ourselves and for each other.
3) You cannot win this fight. We are too many for you. We are too strong for you because we honor each other and we are together.
I will NOT let my daughters and granddaughters go back. There is nothing I won't do to stop you. You forgot we vote now. And there are more of us than ya'll in your backward time capsules. So buh-bye.