Young women today don't know the agony of a pre-Roe v. Wade country. Honestly, I only have an inkling myself. My grandmother knew girls who tried running and jumping off of hills to end their pregnancies and, I'm sure, other methods she didn't mention or didn't know about. It was very, very ugly and those were only the stories of those who tried to end it. I'm glad you included the despairing conversations of your friends because those stories need to be told too.
Freedom is never free but we all too often make the mistake of thinking it is. I've been guilty of this myself but I also have worked hard to try and prevent this. When I was a professor, I'd lecture about the history, reality, and slippery slope of abortion politics. My young female students listened but I'm not sure they truly understood. And when I told them that after abortion was off the table, they'd come for our birth control, they told me I was over-reacting. I wish I was wrong.
Thank you, Ramona, for continuing to write about this. We need your voice and, most especially, your memory. I hope with every fiber of my being that the events of your memory remain in the past and don't become our future. I'm exhausted but I can tell you that women (and some men) in Texas are deeply, deeply angry. This will not end well.
Young women today don't know the agony of a pre-Roe v. Wade country. Honestly, I only have an inkling myself. My grandmother knew girls who tried running and jumping off of hills to end their pregnancies and, I'm sure, other methods she didn't mention or didn't know about. It was very, very ugly and those were only the stories of those who tried to end it. I'm glad you included the despairing conversations of your friends because those stories need to be told too.
Freedom is never free but we all too often make the mistake of thinking it is. I've been guilty of this myself but I also have worked hard to try and prevent this. When I was a professor, I'd lecture about the history, reality, and slippery slope of abortion politics. My young female students listened but I'm not sure they truly understood. And when I told them that after abortion was off the table, they'd come for our birth control, they told me I was over-reacting. I wish I was wrong.
Thank you, Ramona, for continuing to write about this. We need your voice and, most especially, your memory. I hope with every fiber of my being that the events of your memory remain in the past and don't become our future. I'm exhausted but I can tell you that women (and some men) in Texas are deeply, deeply angry. This will not end well.