My Body My Choice
O America what have you become?! You lost your soul with Trumps induction into the White House. And today, Friday June 24th 2022 you have started your journey backwards in time. June 24th 2022 will always be remembered as the Black Friday on which you, a developed nation, the mecca of science & technology, started undoing all your modern achievements and successes and began moving backwards into the dark ages. Today you the birthplace of modern democracy and the torch bearer of liberty and freedom has sold your highest justice system to self interest groups. Today you rolled back your modern thinking, your free will, your liberty and the constitutional rights of your citizens. Today, all the struggles and sacrifices made by your European ancestors to separate the church from the state have gone in vain. Today a so called secular nation has revoked its citizen’s right to practice a faith of their choice.
America, today you the birthplace of the suffrage movement that gave women worldover the right to vote has stripped your own women of their most fundamental right, the right to control their own bodies. You have stripped your women’s right to free will. You have undone all the progress you have made to give equal rights to women. Today, 5 old men and one woman have together crucified the freedom and liberty of all your women citizens. O America! Today you have strangled your Statue of Liberty!!
Your Supreme Court’s Roe vs Wade decision in 1973, written by Nixon appointee Justice Harry Blackmun, reflected a line of legal thinking that the Constitution barred political majorities from imposing their moral judgments on the intimate choices of individuals. Today your court has struck down its own long standing judgment on the 14th Amendment’s guarantee that states can’t deprive individuals of life and liberty without due process of law.
America, today your own elected leaders are brazenly saying that even a child conceived out of incest or rape, I repeat, “incest” or “rape”, cannot be aborted!!! What terrifies me is that one of your Supreme Court judges to vote on this ruling, Amy Barrett, is a woman herself!! How brainwashed are these female judges and female law makers to allow a bunch of men to have control over their bodies in the 21st century?! A century in which your women are leading the world to explore the frontiers of space! How disgusting is it even in this age of knowledge to undermine sexual violence against women? Abortion might be a painful decision to make but every woman has the right to make her own decision!
Today I can’t help thinking of the question then Senator Kamla Harris had asked the Trump Supreme Court nominee, now Justice Brett Kavanaugh… “Can you think of any laws that give the government the power to make decisions about the male body?” Kavanaugh tried to evade the question but eventually had to admit that he couldn’t think of any. America, how about a new law that forces men to render surgeries that make them impotent as a punishment for impregnating a woman against her wishes? For how can you punish a woman when a man forces himself upon her?! Are we really living in the dark ages?
On the one hand the Republican law makers want to protect the life of a fetus before it is even properly developed but on the other hand they do not want to ban assault weapons that kill hundreds of your innocent citizens? Adults and school children alike? Is it really OK with you if a 10 year old child dies of gun violence while a fetus born out of sexual violence cannot be terminated? What kind of justice system is this?? Republicans want uncontrolled access to guns in the name of the 2nd Amendment that gives the right to bear arms. But they want to defy the 14th Amendment that protects an individual’s right to life and liberty? Republican lawmakers want to restrict abortions but they do not want any social welfare schemes to help struggling single mothers!! I want to know who is this God that finds this agreeable.
Every woman has a right to individual privacy and a right to terminate her pregnancy. And history shows that when abortions were made illegal there was a thriving black market. These new restrictions on access to abortion will make abortions extremely cumbersome, expensive and dangerous. This in turn will only affect the most vulnerable and marginalized communities, the women with low incomes. America, what this also means is that it sets a precedent for your Supreme Court to attack the fundamental rights of your already marginalized citizens.
Today someone seated in your highest seat of justice, Justice Clarence Thomas, had the audacity to say that your Supreme Court also needs to reconsider rulings that now protect contraception, same sex relationships and same sex marriage!! Seriously are you really a “developed” country? What right do you have to protest against the Arab world for restricting the freedom of their women? Or admonishing developing and under developed nations for abusing human rights? For as First Lady Hilary Clinton rightly said in China, “Human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights”. Sadly 27 years since that famous speech, on June 25th 2022, little girls in America will wake up with fewer rights than their grandmothers had.
America what next? Today you have stripped a woman’s right to choose. You’ve already indicated that the next on agenda is to ban the use of contraceptives, same sex relationships and same sex marriages. What comes after these? Allow polygamy? Prevent women from going to schools and colleges? Stop women from working outside their kitchens? Stop women from driving cars when Saudi Arabia is finally allowing women to drive? Ban car manufacturing and go back to using horse drawn carriages? If contraceptives are a problem are you going to ban all forms of modern medicines too? Shut down hospitals and promote religious healing? Bring back slavery?? I mean where exactly does this end?? Only when American citizens become barbarians living in caves?? War lords replacing democratically elected governments?
America!!! Please awaken and arise!! Register to vote if you haven’t done so. It takes literally two minutes online as long as you have your driver’s license handy. Visit https://vote.gov/ There are elections in November. Please VOTE. Show the conservative Republican lawmakers that if they strip your rights, you can strip their seats, their power!! We need two thirds House and Senate majority to increase the number of judges in the Supreme Court and restore the balance. To pass laws restricting the age of Supreme Court justices. We need full majority to pass laws that will restrict gerrymandering. We need full majority to ban corporate and private interest money in elections and political lobbying. We need full majority to ban assault weapons, close loopholes in existing gun control laws and to introduce better gun control laws. We need full majority to make universal child care for low income working mothers a reality. We need full majority not just on the Capitol Hill but also at state levels to roll back abortion restrictions imposed by several state governments!!
O America I beg of you to restore the faith immigrant mothers like me have had in you; to restore the faith with which all American mothers have taken for granted the freedoms and equal rights of their daughters.
America, you have always been a trail blazer on many fronts, this time be the trail blazer to protect the rights of your citizens, to uphold your constitutional right to liberty and freedom and equality!! Please do not be a trail blazer who will lead developed nations back into dark medieval ages!!!
