I saw it coming (always listen to the witch people).
I saw it coming.
And it is going to get worse.
I know, you want reassurance and I have none. As the former lobbyist for Planned Parenthood of Utah, I saw this coming 15 years ago. I wrote an entire dissertation about rural women navigating religious stigma and slut shaming to get contraception. Those women’s stories shaped my life in ways you cannot even imagine.
But Roe isn’t just about abortion. Roe is about PRIVACY in medical decisions. Roe is about privacy in private and personal decisions. The right-wing was GENIUS in distracting us with the big ugly abortion monster.
The information released by Politico this week is terrifying. Charging women who experience miscarriage and ectopic pregnancies with murder. The mention of the Lawrence v. Texas ruling that would return sodomy laws to the books. The very idea that interracial marriage could now be at risk should be unthinkable and yet here we are.
Overturning Roe v. Wade doesn’t just affect women who are seeking abortion services. This affects every single person in the United States. We can no longer feed into the 'us vs. them' rhetoric of this damn polarized argument. This isn’t about being pro-choice or anti-choice because this isn’t just about abortion.
I saw it coming. And this isn’t just about women.
Dear feminist movement I implore you to remember that this is also about men. If we want feminist men, we have to raise feminist boys. This isn’t just about raising our girls to be strong, it is about including our sons in this discourse. Please stop asking where the men are and start asking how our own feminist rhetoric locks them out of the conversation.
Here are my big final thoughts:
None of us know what is going to happen. And that is ok.
If we truly want to dismantle white supremacy and destroy the patriarchy, we have to allow this nation as we know it to fall apart. A nation built on the Doctrine of Discovery is an inherently racist, misogynist nation. It is ok for this experiment to fall apart.
Listen to the people who tell you that things are going to get worse. We aren’t overreacting. We see the writing on the wall. And that is ok.
If you want to get more pro-choice folks elected to office, support Emily’s List.
If you want more clarity in your life and don’t know where to turn, book a reading with me. You will be stunned by how lucid your life becomes when we do a reading. Reclaim your agency and release your fears. Click the link!
If you just want to shoot the shit, send me an email, and let’s chat!
And hey, don’t give up. No one said that this wouldn’t be messy as hell. Change is always transformational. Transformation requires that things don’t look the way we thought they would. Courage requires that we allow for the messy middle.
And that is ok.
Sending you love from the trees.
Xoxo,
Dr. Melissa Bird
PS. Check out this live I did about Roe v. Wade
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