feminism, activism Michelle Thomas feminism, activism Michelle Thomas

Unpublished, but not Unsent v8

The fall of Roe v. Wade evidences the decline of feminism; we have got to turn that decline around. We are not our mothers, or our grandmothers. We cannot be forced to live like they did.

Photo depicts staffers and co-founders of Ms. Magazine, including Gloria Steinem

Dear Editor,

Ruth Bader Ginsberg said this in 1993:

“The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman's life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When the government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a full adult human responsible for her own choices.”

fox news launched in 1996.

The reason RBG has always been important to me is because she framed the issue of abortion as it relates to the freedom and rights of the MOTHER. By 2005, when I was in grad school, the issue had already been hijacked by the conservative, religious right-wing, who manipulated the conversation around abortion to frame it in relation to the freedom and rights of the “unborn.” At the time I could feel the backslide, I knew feminism was loosing its foothold, I just didn’t know what to do about it.

The fall of Roe v. Wade evidences the decline of feminism; we have got to turn that decline around. Now that we’ve been debilitated back to 1973, we have got to wrest back that frame. We are not our mothers, or our grandmothers. We cannot be forced to live like they did, simply too much time has passed.

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