Today’s blog

06/25/2022

Lynn Murphy Mark

Leave us alone!

Yesterday I was especially busy at work. I did see the notification on my phone that SCOTUS had undone Roe v. Wade. It was a gut punch but I really didn’t have time to react, or call any of my sister-friends to start processing what this really means for women, and men – who are half of the equation. 

My workplace is right across the street from the Planned Parenthood building. Usually there are a handful of anti-abortion people carrying signs with pictures of fetuses and slogans about “right to life”. Not last night. Last night there were at least 20 people gathered outside the building, carrying signs. One young woman raised a sign that said, “My abortion saved my life!”. Drivers were going by honking in support. By the time nightly news was on, the crowd had grown quite a bit and our Congresswoman, Cori Bush, was being interviewed by MSNBC.

Nancy Pelosi spoke at some point and said she would do everything in her power to “codify” Roe v Wade. Not knowing exactly what that means, I looked it up and found an article with a quotation from a civil rights and feminist attorney at Boston University, Ms. McClain. She said: “In simple terms, to codify something means to enshrine a right or a rule into a formal systematic code. It could be done through an act of Congress in the form of a federal law. Similarly, state legislatures can codify rights by enacting laws. To codify Roe for all Americans, Congress would need to pass a law that would provide the same protections that Roe did – so a law that states that women have a right to abortion without excessive government restrictions. It would be binding for all states.”

I’m sorry, Nancy, but are you aware that the Senate is in no mood to do anything that would resemble cooperation in the matter of protecting human rights? It can’t even get off the dime when nineteen 4^th graders are slaughtered.  And have you noticed that the Supreme Court is packed with people who probably believe that Margaret Atwood’s, “The Handmaids Tale” is non-fiction?

All I can do at the moment is to feel helpless and furious. I wonder what kind of country we have become, when the will of the majority is snuffed out by a minority of men, and women, who want to take us back in time. A time when women knew their place. A time when back alley abortions were most women’s choice. How is it that the minority rules us? I can’t get my head around that. 

Nancy Pelosi also said that our one recourse is our vote in November. Today, and this won’t last long, I feel like my vote won’t make a difference – but I’ll vote anyway. I’m not sure the Democrats running for office in my state have a chance – but I’ll vote anyway. As for the Supreme Court, well their approval level in this country is at 25% and I wonder if, after yesterday, it will go down even more. And yet, and yet, they sit in their ivory building and do the bidding of 45, who stacked the court with three justices who at one point said Roe v Wade was untouchable.

I don’t know why I can’t get paragraph spacing to work this morning, so I apologize in advance for a sloppy looking blog. But I’ve got bigger worries – like how to settle my mind down and figure out what the next right thing is for me to do.