Unpublished, but not Unsent v7

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

Dear Editor,

I have been thinking a lot about blame (which surprisingly is *not* one of the stages of grief). I don’t want to hear one more person lay the fall of Roe v. Wade at the feet of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I blame trump voters but at least there’s a through line in what they believe - first, they believe him, second, they believe fox news, and third they believe in an invisible, extra-terrestrial higher power called god, and it’s now the decrees of that belief that determine what living, breathing women can do with their bodies (and this coming from someone [me] who sometimes go to church:)!

But I also blame the rest of us and am struggling to find the through line there. How is this our fault? The simplest answer I can come up with is that we haven’t been political enough, because it’s too painful and too uncomfortable be political. I hate talking about politics in any situation that may cause even the slightest distress, especially with people who aren’t as “progressive” as I believe myself to be.

But as of now our reality is being legally defined by people who believe that bringing every pregnancy to term is what is best for the physical and emotional well-being of ALL women. By people who believe adopting out an “unwanted” child to strangers will be less painful for a new mother than terminating the pregnancy would have been. It’s our reality that is being legally redefined and if we don’t start talking about - and keep talking about - why we demand the right to abortion than that reality could disappear all together. Without Roe vs. Wade you really are going to need to become involved in politics at the local level and educate yourself about pro-choice candidates and elect them, which might sound overwhelming, but if we don’t do it now then our reality will literally disappear. How depressing.

Unpublished, but not Unsent v4

Dear Editor,

If your readers are worried about Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the US Supreme Court, they should be. And if your readers marched in protest on October 17th, 2020, I’d like to thank them for marching for me. It’s been simpler for me to accept what Barrett’s appointment will mean while still fighting mightily to protect the rights we will lose, as best I know how. Every day, EVERY DAY, I think of those six-year-olds shot in Sandy Hook; yet federal protection of the Second Amendment will be strengthened. Every day I think of the words of Maxine Waters as she spoke them at the 2017 Women’s Convention in Detroit:

“Keep your hands off our backs and our goddamn bodies!”

Yet federal protection for reproductive rights will be overturned. I’d like to tell your readers: This is happening on our watch.

Dr. Willie Parker notes:

“Liberals may hear about [anti-abortion] laws enacted elsewhere, in states where they are not likely to live, that require counseling and waiting periods, widened hallways and hospital admitting privileges, and shrug...From the relative safety of the blue states, voters who support abortion rights can be insulated from the devastating impact new [anti-abortion] laws make on women’s lives.”

I’d like to tell your readers: Do not let this happen to you. Barrett’s appointment means we will need to spend the next forty+ years fighting everyday to keep from losing the basic rights our mothers procured for us. If you don’t or can’t remember life before Roe v. Wade, read “The Story of Jane, the Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service,” by Laura Kaplan. Roe v. Wade stated that abortion is a medical decision to be made by a woman and her doctor. That’s all it protects, and the right to that decision is what Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and especially Barrett, are going to take away from you.

Unpublished, but not Unsent v1

In September of 2020, I began writing a series of Letters to the Editor of the New York Times, which I submit, but which are, needless to say, never published. The letters are lamentations, mainly, on dealing with the consequences of, as I saw it originally, a post-trump reality. What I’ve learned since is that what, for me, was “post-trump”, was just normal, everyday life for other people.

I write these letters to self-soothe, whenever my Current Affairs anxiety needs leveling.

Dear Editor,

When I was teenager, about the age a mother-daughter relationship is just beginning to transform into a friendship, my mother told me a story she’d told many times before, but with a new twist.

When she became pregnant with me in her late twenties, she was ecstatic. My parents were married but their relationship was rocky and she wasn’t sure where he stood on the subject. So she made an appointment with a doctor to listen and learn more about abortion. This was 1975, only two years after Roe v. Wade, and abortion was now an option for her, a freedom she had the right to exercise. “I wanted to have you,” she told me, “but I wanted your father to choose you, too.”

He did, and I was born. But it was the abortion right that helped my parents commit to having a family. When it came time to have my own family, I felt honored to access the same right to a safe, legal abortion as my mother. I, too, did not exercise it and now have a beautiful daughter.

The terrible thing is, I desperately wanted to have more children but after battling endometriosis was unable to conceive a second time. And at the same time I lie awake at night drenched in fear that Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment and Ruth Bader Ginsberg's death will destroy the one freedom that made my family possible. The right to an abortion did for my family what it was supposed to, it allowed me to choose to have a family. How can I now be expected to parent a daughter knowing she will not have that same right? I already carry with me the painful burden of unfulfilled longing for more children; now I must brace myself to say goodbye to my daughter’s right, as a woman, to seek an abortion and, terrified for her future, carry that burden too.