If I’m being completely honest, the news about the leaked document took a little bit of a toll on me. I went to the protest on Foley Square right after finishing my class and only got to spend about 45 mins. I felt so guilty not being able to properly commit and angry because I honestly thought we were done with this issue at least. It’s infuriating how instead of progressing and moving towards how to make abortion accessible, birth control safer, we’re instead moving backwards having to fight about the same issue again.

It was also interesting to see how many people in Twitter were talking about how this is just like The Handmaid’s Tale. I don’t mean to dismiss their rightful outrage, but the truth is it has more or less always been this way. Women from marginalized communities have had their reproductive rights violated, even in recent times. Dawn Wooten, a nurse who worked at the privately-operated Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia had come forward how there hysterectomies without informed consent were performed on undocumented immigration in ICE detention facilities. While these were unverified allegations, it’s not hard to believe since US has had a history of forcefully sterilizing or performing experiments on BIPOC women, poor people and people with physical and mental disabilities. So, while we protest against the overturning of Roe v. Wade, we must also make sure we acknowledge and fight against the injustice minorities continuously face and fight for them as well.

This shit is so frustrating and overwhelming. There’s a shortage of baby formulas, the foster care system is messed up, our planet’s essentially dying and there’s so much wealth inequality. Forcing someone to give birth in this environment is all kinds of evil. The more I think about it the more hopeless I feel and seeing people make insensitive comments about such an issue, or downright trivialize it, is depressing.