Tags
#undecided, abortion, Democrats, politics, Republicans, Roe V Wade
Happy November! I just voted and it feels great! Vote Vote Vote!
I missed a post on Monday. I knew I missed it at the time, but with Sandy hitting down on the east coast and Halloween celebrations and almost election time, I just didn’t quite get there. Either way, this post is going to be short and sweet.
Aside from Sandy, Halloween, and NaNoWriMo (which I’m still not sure if I’m doing), I’ve been thinking a lot about women’s rights, women’s healthcare, and women’s autonomy. Maintaining my own autonomy is especially important because I like to be able to make decisions for myself and my body. I want other women to have that freedom as well, it grows self esteem and strength.
Then there’s the hot topic of abortion. I don’t really care if you are against abortion, this isn’t really about abortion. It’s about whether women will be able to make decisions for their own bodies or whether the government will.
Roe v Wade is a landmark decision in our nation’s history that gives women the opportunity to make choices for her body, that says a woman has the right to have a safe and legal abortion or that she doesn’t have to if she doesn’t want to.
People who are against Roe v Wade are essentially against women being able to make decisions for themselves. If you say it should be illegal, you are saying women are incapable of making the decision to have one or not.
With the election coming up, all kinds of people say women are interested in the economy. Of course we are. But you know what, we are also interested in having autonomy over ourselves, our lives, our bodies. I am voting from my body, because one piece of that autonomy is being able to vote, which also includes whether I can make decisions about whether I want an abortion or not.
Mitt Romney’s party has been clear about wanting to overturn Roe V Wade. Romney states on his website that for him the next step is the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade. This tells me his interests are not in women’s autonomy. He did say to a group of people in Ohio, that he would make an exception on abortion “where the life of his campaign was at stake.” In the debates, he said that he would be okay with women who have been raped and were pregnant from that rape, having abortions. What I worry about with that is: will those women then have to prove that they were really raped or that the rape was “forcible rape”- which by the definition of rape, all rape is forcible rape, but whatever!
Randi Saunders writes about this issue on her blog The Radical Idea, check it out! She lays out her concerns really well! It is chilling to think of a rape survivor having to prove they were raped in order to have an abortion.
I feel good about having voted! I voted for women. I voted for equality. This seems like a battle because it’s election time, but unfortunately, whatever happens next week after all the votes are tallied, this will still be a battle. The rights of women are not secure and there will be people working worldwide to control women and keep us down. We must continue the fight for equality for all people. But for now, Please, Go vote!
Grrl Code: Exercise your right- we fought for it, we won it! Vote!
