The leaked document about Roe v. Wade has me on edge like most others (even though it doesn’t currently threaten me and my rights in the same way as it does others, because of my choice in partners). We are in quite a nationwide panic, with riots already happening here in nyc. I am glad the article touched upon precedent landmark decisions and what the overturning of Roe v. Wade means for the future. I’ve already seen discussion on this, specific to what it means to my own community as an LGBT person. Roe v. Wade is from 1937. If Roe v. Wade apparently could not hold enough weight and precedence in last 85 years to stand, how are we going to protect other laws that were recognized under the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment from being overturned, and the lives of millions of minorities threatened? Obergefell v. Hodges that decided the legality of same-sex marriage, was only in 2015. How soon are we to losing that? Southern states have already moved to make it a FELONY to be a transgender child or adult. You know what felons cannot do? VOTE!
PLEASE REMEMBER THAT TALK SURROUNDING ROE V. WADE MUST BE INTERSECTIONAL AND INCLUDE ALL PEOPLE WHO HAVE UTERUSES, NOT JUST CISGENDER WOMEN.
Some people may tout Roe v. Wade as a right to religious freedom, completely ignoring the fact that it is infringing on the rights and values of non-Christian religions that allow and even require abortion under certain circumstances. The article also mentions Plessy v. Ferguson, which prohibited segregation under the idea of “Separate but equal” in relation to the overturning of Roe v Wade. This could all just be the start of huge steps backwards for our country in human rights and equal protections. How far will we let this go? If we do not fight back we are going to see future generations study this when learning American History,and ask us in shock “How did this happen?”
I want to highlight this quote from Rebecca Gompert: The main reason abortion is so controversial in the U.S.? “Because if you can prevent abortion, you can keep people poor, and when you keep people poor, you can control them.”
The video “Abortion Helpline This is Lisa”, highlights an argument that people who are anti-abortion use which is that they want to “save the children.” Those people are filled with cognitive dissonance and are spouting lies. They only “care” about the child until it is actually born. Anti-abortion laws disproportionately affect poor and black women. This only leads to more children in poverty, homelessness, and the already highly flawed foster care system. There are already millions of babies and children out there waiting to be adopted, why forcibly add more instead of taking care of the children already struggling in this country.

This was a great topic to end the semester on, a perfect way to connect back round to beginning of semester with bell hooks.

Based on the most recent events revolving around abortions as well as who may be allowed to go about said procedures are wavering. The overturning of Roe V. Wade in the article “Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows” one can see that another important topic is why pro-life and pro-choice activists think the way they do around the topic of abortion. To build an argument that helps one understand why abortion is necessary to some and unnecessary to others. According to said article, “Much of Alito’s draft is devoted to arguing that widespread criminalization of abortion during the 19th and early 20th century belies the notion that a right to abortion is implied in the Constitution.” My overall thoughts, illustrate the imbalance of what is actually morally right within one’s society, while also demonstrating how long these morally imbalances has affected us as individuals. Adding on to why woman are always expected to keep a baby not because she or anyone else wants it, but for the sole purpose of reproduction.

The political-economic order is made up of various variables, one of which is race. Black women in the United States have the highest abortion rates in the country. This is due to the significant financial disparity between white and black households, which persists even within poor families. Within the documentary, Abortion Helpline, This Is Lisa, There’s this sort of insight of those who may be considered in the minority being that there where these different cases of woman attempting the scrap together anything they have to just afford an abortion. The Documentary states, “The discriminatory hide amendment is a woman’s health catastrophe, In affect it makes abortion only an option for the wealthy”. For example, In the minority community black children and black women are heavily fetishized for not only their features, but their style and hair as well. So there have been many instances where a woman could be raped, or forced to have a child simply because someone wanted the features, and now that child has to grow up being the abortion that never happened, and to live with that could definitely do some serious psychological damage which infact will render that child traumatized . This kind of rationale, banning abortion for the sake of reproduction, completely eradicates any sort of sensible reasoning a woman may or may not have for actually wanting an abortion.

Humanities need to reproduce isn’t because life is valued, it’s because society has a need “to continue the endless cycle of human production” Is one of the most vital aspects I feel as though has stuck with me. Following the article, Telemedicine Abortion Provider Rebecca Gomperts Gets Abortion Pills Into the Hands of Those Who Need Them: ‘It’s a Privilege’ revealed a side to what it may look like for woman trying to help other woman in what we can all relate to “In addition to delivering abortion pills by mail, Gomperts has continued to find creative ways to get pills into the hands of women. Over the last decade, Women on Waves has deliveredabortion pills by ship to women in Morocco, Guatemala and Mexico; by drone in Poland and Ireland; and by robot in Northern Ireland, Poland and Mexico“. Showing us that there will always be a way for what is morally correct to be done, if even once defied.