I Just Can’t.

I was doing a beauty product post and I had to just stop because it felt so…. stupid. Who cares what face cream I use? I just can’t today. I’m too angry, too sad, too upset to be frivolous today. It doesn’t feel right.

I’ve posted on my IG about what’s going on in Texas and with the Supreme Court. As if COVID wasn’t enough, now our human rights are also being threatened on top of our physical ones. I am enraged. I am incensed. And I’m not here to argue or try to change some pro-life person’s mind, because I’m pretty sure I can’t. What really has me angry, and should have everyone angry on both sides of the abortion argument, are the scary, dystopian details of this law. The bounty put on women’s heads for trying to procure an abortion after 6 weeks.  The fines an Uber driver could be hit with for driving someone to a clinic or a doctor.  The fact that a woman’s uncle could rape and impregnate her and then get rewarded $10k for reporting her if she tried to end her pregnancy. This should terrify everyone. Men. Women. Pro-life, Pro-choice. EVERYONE.

No, I don’t think abortion should be used repeatedly as a form of birth control. But in order for us to have FEWER abortions in this country we have to spend money on education, free birth control, developing better male birth control, providing better maternal care and health care. Clearly Texas has the money for all these things, they just choose to use it to pay bounties on women’s heads instead of actually making effective change.

Some people sent me messages on IG about how they thought I was a monster for being pro-choice after having so much trouble conceiving. Let me tell you, I’ve never BEEN more pro-choice since going through IVF.  I know exactly how early 6 weeks is and even when you have an embryo implanted in you on a scheduled day and you know EXACTLY how pregnant you could be those first few weeks they don’t give you an ultrasound until 6 weeks. 5 at the earliest. And if they don’t see a heartbeat then, they wait until 8- because it’s TOO EARLY to tell at 6 weeks if a pregnancy is viable.  I also know how grateful I was to be able to have D&C’s and not have to wait out miscarriages for weeks and weeks, allowing me to grieve and try to heal sooner. Also, under this law, if you find out your baby has birth defects incompatible with life or will die after birth, they will make the woman carry the pregnancy to term anyways. Do you know how horrific that is for the woman? How soul crushing that news is regardless? And then to insist they carry a doomed pregnancy to term? It’s barbaric.

But above all, I know how HARD it is to be a mother even when you want desperately to be one and have all the help and privilege in the world. So I cannot imagine what it would be like if you don’t want to be, are not capable of being or are too young to be one. This decision should lie in the hands of the person who is pregnant. Not the government. Yes, it takes a man and a woman to make a baby, but only a woman can carry one, endures the pregnancy, is by default, the primary caregiver in most cases.  To pass this law is to treat women as sub-human. A mere vessel.

I know you come here for levity and fun. And I promise that most of the time, that’s what I will focus on. But this is too big. This truly terrifies me- not only for myself but my daughter and son. This is not the world I want them to inherit, and to stay silent is to be complicit. I’ll lose followers, I know that.  I wish people could disagree and still be friends and followers, but we’ve ignited such a fierce divisiveness in this world in the past decade that I fear that is a rarity now. As such, I am turning off comments on this post, something I never do. I just can’t today.

I hope you all have a nice holiday weekend. Stay safe. Stay strong. Stay informed.