Throwing women under the bus for the cause

Y’know that saying about opinions and assholes? Well, that saying is why I stopped writing this blog. But this is something I can’t keep my big mouth shut over.

In the wake of the Trump shit-show, there has been some talk recently in Democratic circles that in order to stop losing elections, Democrats need to “widen the tent.” And some people are suggesting that this happen by way of letting in those Democrats who are anti-abortion.

If you are a Democrat who is personally anti-abortion but still in favor of choice for others, I will hold the tent flap back for you, welcome you inside, high-five you and buy you a drink. Hell, we can go hug trees, work to make sure America understands that Black Lives DO matter, and tear down the patriarchy together.


But if you are an anti-choice Democrat who seeks to affect anti-abortion legislation, either directly or by voting for those who affect anti-abortion legislation, then that is where we have to part ways. There should be no room in the tent for those who would actively work to take rights away from women.

Should we let people who are openly “a little bit racist” in the tent? Should we let in those who are “a little bit anti-LGBTQ+?” Should we let them actively work to walk back rights for those people while under the same tent with the rest of us? Y’know. So we can “win?”

I have heard the argument made that abortion is “settled law,” and therefore democrats need to stop bringing it up and putting it in the voting publics’ faces. A few years ago, I might’ve gotten behind that strategy, but no more. Because ten years ago, the religious right really was just using the abortion issue to get votes, blowing a lot of hot air, but not making good on their threats to curb access. This is no longer the case. The evangelical right has worked diligently to elect their candidates to every level of government, and while they can’t (yet) make abortion illegal, they have done a damn good job at limiting its access. 

Since about 2010, evangelicals have been successful in instituting several TRAP laws (TRAP stands for Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) that have closed about 125 abortion clinics nationwide. TRAP laws are often proposed under the guise of “helping” women, when really the goal is to harass doctors and close clinics. States are now legislating everything from clinic room size to hallway width, and if a clinic doesn’t have the funds to remodel, they’re out of business. Some laws require abortion providers to have local hospital access … but what if the local hospital is a Catholic hospital? Eight states require abortion clinics to be located a specific distance from a hospital. If the clinic isn’t within that distance, it has to move or close.

Because of TRAP laws, Kentucky is now down to one abortion clinic. The enforcement of TRAP laws managed to successfully close two other Kentucky clinics in 2016. The last clinic is open only because a judge stepped in and granted it a reprieve, but that may not last. According to the Guttmacher Institute, Kentucky performed 3,530 abortions in 2014. Is one clinic supposed to handle that volume of patients?

Thirteen states now require a woman to undergo a sonogram of her pregnancy before aborting, whether she wants to or not. Nebraska, Oklahoma and Wisconsin now force the woman to look at an image of sonogram, whether she wants to or not.

Here in Kansas, the most recent attack on abortion care is almost laughably silly, but most certainly not funny. It’s known as the “font law,” and it would require abortion clinics to hand out information on the doctor performing the abortion, such as where they went to school, whether or not they’re a resident of Kansas and how many times they’ve been sued. The bill, which hasn’t become law, states that the information has to be printed out in black ink, in 12-point Times New Roman font. Is the Kansas legislature asking for such regulations on heart doctors or brain surgeons? Oh, hell no. Only abortion providers.

Many insurance policies don’t cover abortion care, and many states forbid insurance companies from covering abortion care. Women either have to pay out of pocket, or purchase a special insurance rider for their policy. Most women pay cash for their abortion, so that there’s no paper trail. According to the Guttmacher Institute, seventy-five percent of women who seek abortions are poor or low-income.

Many states have now passed waiting periods that vary from 24 to 72 hours, waiting periods that the medical community agrees are totally unnecessary. Imagine a poor, working woman who has to travel, possibly out of state, to access an abortion. She’s already had to scrape together the money for the procedure itself. If she works a job that doesn’t provide sick time, she’ll lose pay to receive and recover from the procedure. On top of that, some states burden her with an additional three days of lost pay and hotel expense as she waits out the medically unnecessary waiting period. If she has children at home, someone has to take care of her kids while she’s gone. If all of this is already a near financial impossibility for many American women, why in the world would some people force her to go through the pregnancy by making the hurdles to abortion so high she can’t jump them? Are we really so cruel as to make her only other option to give up the child for adoption?  What if she can’t afford the prenatal care before the child is adopted?

The religious right has also successfully rebranded the D&C procedure (dilation and curettage) as “partial-birth abortion,” which is not a medical term, but a political one, because it sounds offensive. And this smear campaign has worked. Though the procedure is far safer medically than other methods of removing a fetus from a cervix, this hasn’t stopped evangelicals from trying to pass laws banning so-called “partial-birth abortion,” at both the federal and state levels. But a ban would also make it illegal to perform a D&C on a woman who has recently had a miscarriage. In other words, the right would rather put women’s very lives at risk by making a legitimate medical procedure illegal across the board.

What good is it if abortion is technically “legal,” but can’t be accessed by a good portion of American women?

Though abortion is still 100% legal in the United States of America, we don’t treat it like any other legal medical procedure. Instead of handling it as legitimate health care, we treat abortion clinics like menstruation shame huts. Women who need abortion care often have to endure harassment and public ridicule from protesters. There is no medical procedure for men that would force them to give up work pay to travel over state lines and endure a waiting period for a procedure many insurance policies can't, or won’t, cover while complete strangers scream insults at them. Men wouldn’t, in a hundred years, stand for such humiliating treatment.

Dr. George Tiller, one of just a few doctors in the nation who performed very late-term abortions, was shot in the head in the middle of his church. And contrary to what our Fake President says, babies are not “ripped out of the womb” at nine months. Late term abortions are only performed in cases of fatal fetal abnormalities or a very real health risk to the mother. Late term abortions are ALWAYS medically necessary, yet they are the most vilified. 

Even though it takes two people to create a pregnancy, women bear virtually the entire stigma for abortion. Yet some people would now ask women to suffer more. To fight harder for bodily autonomy. To endure additional degradation and judgment. They are asking women to voluntarily take a step backward in order that the collective be able to move forward.

To those people I say: Bullshit.

It is the year 2017, and women are tired of the indignity. What we do not need is to cozy up to those who would continue to use abortion, and women’s lives, as political footballs. What we need to do is take the stigma out of abortion. We need to start talking about it like grownups, vocally and publically. We need to treat it like the health and economic issue that it is. A full third of American women will have an abortion at some point in their lives. Yet this country continues to treat abortion like a shameful, dirty medical decision that women are too stupid to make on our own, without lots of expensive, often unconstitutional, meddling from the very people who claim to be against the Nanny State.

When does this absurdity stop? When do women gain the right to have license over our own bodies? When do we gain the right to have our own say over our economic destinies? Over our very futures? The decision to have, or not have, a child is central to every woman’s life. Taking away a woman’s ability to have autonomy over her own body and her own future is discrimination. Period.

Women require abortion care for a myriad of reasons, all of which are intensely personal. This is the time for the Democratic Party to stand with women, stand up for our life decisions, our healthcare and our dignity. Not treat us like second-class citizens.

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Most of the numbers and statistics for this opinion piece come from the Guttmacher Institute www.guttmacher.org.

Fidel Castro is dead!

This tweet says it all. It says everything about the election and the appalling state of this nation’s moral and intellectual heart.

No analysis. No introspection. No hopes for the future.  No thought.

Just noise. Just empty, hot air.

This is what we get, it seems. This is what we receive as penance for gay marriage, wider access to healthcare and daring to let a black man lead for eight years.

Fidel Castro is dead!

This is what we get so that a few of the most butt-hurt of this nation’s god-fearing white people can feel comfortable again. Feel as though they not only still matter, but that they’re in control.

Receiving an actual game show host as President seems a steep price to pay for inching toward equal rights at a pace that would make a snail’s race seem like the Kentucky Derby.

Fidel Castro is dead!

America, my heart is forever broken.

Our collective to-do list

If you’re like me, you are drowning in a swamp of despair and dystopian confusion in the wake of presidential election. If you’re even more like me, you’re pissed as fuck, full of rage, and you don’t know what to do with that energy.* Here are some concrete ideas:

Donate to a non-profit that really needs it right now

Personally, I prefer to give within my community as opposed to national charities. If you can spare the extra dollars, here are a few election-specific ideas of non-profits you can donate to: A local food bank; your local chapter of Planned Parenthood; your local chapter of the ACLU; a local suicide hotline or mental health facility; your local women’s shelter. But really, whatever non-profit seems appropriate right now will do.

When you see discrimination, DON’T LET IT SLIDE

The current conventional wisdom is to not confront bigots, because getting angry in their faces supposedly helps to convince them that they are right. (Or some such shit.) So if you see someone obviously being hassled because of their race, religion or ideology, become that person’s new friend. You don’t even have to confront the bully. Just start up a conversation with the person being harassed, and maybe even encourage them to leave the space with you.

(Between you and me though, if I thought I could get away with it, without being physically threatened, I plan to video any harasser I encounter and then plaster that shit all over social media, because I still think that good ol' fashioned public shunning ain’t such a bad thang. People seem to have lost their shit and forgotten that being a bigot is a BAD thing. I don't mind reminding them.)

Volunteer

Become a Big Sister or Big Brother. Deliver food for Meals on Wheels. Lead a reading or study group at your local jail or prison. Volunteer in a classroom at your local school. Help out at a soup kitchen. Become an escort for women going into abortion clinics. Be there for your fellow American. Let’s show each other that we support each other regardless of our backgrounds.

Subscribe to a newspaper

#HerrCryBaby HATES the First Amendment and has threatened to chip away at it. The New York Times has vowed to fight tooth-and-nail to protect the First Amendment, and Americans need to join the fight. Purchasing a subscription for any newspaper that doesn’t buy into far-right rhetoric will do. We NEED our journalists in this frightening time, and journalists have to eat, too. The cool thing is that these days, a digital subscription means no pesky recycling.

Get familiar with your representatives and make them earn their salaries

According to a former staffer for a representative, phone calls are the most effective way of contacting the people who are supposed to represent you in the government. Emails and letters are easily ignored, but the phone ringing off the hook all day sends a clear message. They may not like your message, but they can’t pretend it doesn’t exist, either.

Run for office

Doesn’t have to be a national office. Far right extremists have quietly, and very effectively, taken over our city councils, county commissions, school boards and pretty much government at every level. If you are at all inclined to publicly support equality, now is the time.

Protest

Protesting is as American as apple pie, and with social media, finding your local protests is a piece of cake. Have you been thinking about joining your local Black Lives Matter group? Do it. There’s probably a Pantsuit Nation group in your city or state. Protests provide a visible illustration of our collective frustration. (Poetry!) Politicians and news outlets cannot ignore large gatherings of humans. Now is the time to channel your inner Mahatma Gandhi, Susan B. Anthony, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. to let your unrest be known.

Be a friend to a human in the target group

Brown and black folks are getting the worst of the harassment right now. If you are a white person, let the people of color in your life know that you do not support the recent wave of bigotry sweeping the nation. Let them know you support them and mean it. Listen. Don't tell them how to feel or what to think. Just listen. And if they need you to physically be with them in public, do that, too. If you're a dude, listen to the women in your life who are hurting because once again, sexual crime is being normalized.

Talk and take care

Don’t be afraid to talk about these issues with your friends and family who will listen. None of this new madness can become the new normal. It is NOT normal, and we can’t assume everything will be okay. The next four years may be rough, and we’re all going to need each other.

DO THIS POSTCARD THING!

#HerrCryBaby has chosen actual white supremacist Stephen Bannon as his chief strategist. Let him know THIS IS NOT OKAY.

Join in and send a postcard directly to Trump! Here are the basic instructions to participate:

** IMPORTANT - Don't mail your card until NOV. 26th **

1. Get a postcard from your state - any picture that represents your state.
2. In the message section, write this simple message: NOT BANNON!
3. Sign your name if you wish
4. Address it as follows:
Donald Trump
c/o The Trump Organization
725 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10022
5. Affix a stamp - you can use a 35 cent postcard stamp, or a normal letter stamp.
6. Take a picture of your postcard that you can share on social media on Nov. 26-28th
7. Drop it in the mail between Saturday, Nov 26th and Monday, Nov. 28th to create a concentrated avalanche of postcards. 

8. On Nov. 26-28th, Tweet and share the heck out of your photo using the hashtags #postcardavalanche #stopbannon

*If you're NOT like me and you wanna go throw down in the parking lot, meet me outside.

Things for which I am grateful, and things I hope

First and foremost, I am grateful that my child is healthy. (Knock wood.) I am grateful to have a husband who sees me as a full and equal partner and human on this planet. I am grateful for their love to me, and I am grateful that I can share my love with them.

I am grateful to have so many kick-fucking-ass friends right now. Both close friends and acquaintances. Most of my friends understand what a fucked-up move electing Trump to the presidency is. They understand it and they are going to fight it. They are clever, and intelligent and funny and their insight is making it so I can laugh occasionally, even though things feel so heavy and dark right now.

These are the things I hope for our future:

I hope that Donald Trump is a better president than all our wildest dreams. I hope that his economic policies lift the people out of despair who need it the very most. I hope that the people who believe money trumps civil rights make enough money so that they can feel kindness toward those who may not look like themselves.

I hope Trump disappoints the racists by not building his stupid fucking wall. I hope he has something to say about police brutality. I hope he addresses income inequality and surprises us on the environment. 

I hope the country can come together. I sincerely, sincerely mean those things.

I also hope that Donald Trump hates every fucking second of his new job. I hope he’s awake 20 hours of every day, 7 days a week, for the next 4 years. I hope it is a depressing, anxiety-inducing, waking, walking, talking, horrible nightmare. I hope he is mad that he can’t play golf whenever he feels like it. I hope he gets pissed that he can’t fuck women without a Secret Service agent listening outside the room. I hope that his big empty head explodes when he figures out that he’s not a dictator, but a prisoner.

Even if he ends up being a halfway-not-so-horrible president, I hope this is the penance Big Don pays for jacking this country around as though it was his own personal episode of Survivor. And if it ends up that he does turn out to be the shitty, racist, vicious, misogynist pig president me and my friends are worried about, the kind who enacts horrible humanitarian policies and sends us down the economic tubes, then he deserves to hate his fucking job, anyway.

Finally, I hope YOU have a lovely day!

Apples and dog turds*

For the sake of clarity, President-elect Donald Trump will be referred to as “fuckface” (lowercase) in this blog post.

If I hear one more white person whine, “We didn’t protest when Obama was elected,” I seriously don’t know what I might do or say.

Oh, you didn’t protest a lovely man with an intelligent wife who has spent his life working to make life better for others. How noble of you. And also, how dare you compare protesting Obama and protesting fuckface in the same sentence. In the same context. It’s like comparing apples to dog turds.

The rest of us are absolutely devastated that our country elected an accused child rapist, racist, woman-hating, narcissistic ass hole who has no qualms about cheating his fellow hard working Americans out of millions of dollars for work that they performed.

“Give him a chance,” they say.

The way you gave Obama a chance? A man who patiently weathered your hate for eight years and STILL managed to push through legislation to provide healthcare for millions of Americans? A man who worked to help YOU and YOUR FAMILY even whilst you spit in his face?

Nope.

I sincerely hope that the fuckface administration is successful in helping my fellow Americans. I also sincerely doubt that will happen.

Those of us who did NOT vote for trump: We have work to do. We have anger, sadness and frustration that we must somehow morph into productive work. Now is not the time to worry about being embarrassed or quiet. When you see people of color, LGBTQ+ folks, Muslims … anyone who has been marginalized by this election—being harassed or discriminated against, you must speak up. WE must speak up. We have to let our fellow Americans know that WE see them. We hear them. WE care.

Even if President-elect fuckface and his supporters don’t.

*Thanks to my friend Lana for the blog post title! :)

Hot dogs and love

It has come to my attention that some white people out there insist on referring to the Black Lives Matter movement as a “terrorist organization.” Because of the explosion of blatant police brutality toward people of color that’s being caught on video because of the proliferation of smart phones, I became curious about the BLM movement and decided to check it out myself.

Recently, our local chapter of BLM held an open meeting at a public park. I went with a friend who is also a white lady like myself. Because her place is just a couple of blocks away from the park, I met her there and we walked over to the park, carrying lawn chairs with us.

A black lady driving an SUV slowed down when she saw us. “Are you going to the Black Lives Matter meeting?” she asked.

We affirmed that we were.

“Would you like a ride?” she asked.

We let her know that we were fine walking — at that point we were only maybe a hundred yards from the meeting spot in the park — so we waved and smiled and thanked her. She smiled and waved back and drove on.

When we arrived at the meeting, I took note of the makeup of the crowd, which was extremely diverse. People of all ages were there, from little kids running around the park to older people. The group was a reflection of our community: black folks, white folks and Native Americans, though our community is predominantly white.

The meeting featured a scheduled line-up of speakers. Most of the speakers were young people, of various races. First, they handed out pitchforks and torches and told us to attack the strongholds of whitey. HAHAHA! I’m totes joking. What actually happened was that most of the speakers thanked the crowd for caring enough to show up. They thanked us for simply being there and acknowledging that there are real racial problems in this country that need to be addressed. They demonized no one in particular and did not tell their own personal stories of discrimination, though that would’ve been okay with me had they done so.

One of the speakers made it clear that as a BLM member, everyone was expected to be respectful of everyone else, regardless of race, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. He also emphasized that anyone who needed help getting to meetings for any reason only needed to ask and arrangements would be made to get that person to meetings. Then we were informed that there were hot dogs for sale for a small price to help raise some funds for the group. (I asked my friend later if she could remember if vegan hot dogs were offered. She could not. She did, however, want me to note that she ended up with several oak mite bites.)

At the end of the night, as the meeting broke up, it was announced that there were unsold hot dogs left, so anyone who was hungry was welcome to have one for free.

So that’s my big report on Black Lives Matter. To sum up: Zero calls for terror or crime against whitey. Lots of hot dogs and love.

Nothing

warning: sexual trauma triggers

Oh my gawd, you guys! I was so kind of happy that Donald Trump's pussy grabbing started a national conversation about the sexual harassment and rape of women, but as it turns out, I was mistaken! We don't need to have a conversation about the safety of our daughters AT ALL. Dudebros on the internet have explained to me again and again that the prevalence of sexual harassment and rape is really not happening as much as I think it is, and that when it does happen, it is really not all that bad after all.

Whew!

That eleven year old boy who pinched my ass when I was also eleven? The beginning in a string of incidents in which my bodily space was invaded without my permission? Events that would turn me into the hardened bitch I am now?

Never happened.

That guy who pulled up in his skanky Datsun to ask me directions when I was twelve years old walking home from grade school? The one who was totally wanking it when I leaned in to hear his soft voice because I wanted to be polite? That never happened either! My mother apparently did not call the police who took my statement while I was afraid and mortified, only to never be heard from again. 

And then, later that evening, I did NOT experience a creepy feeling of dissociation as though I was remembering the incident as a movie that happened to someone else, a feeling which my mother had to explain to me was totally natural.

That known tough kid who followed me off the junior high bus when we were thirteen, grabbed my arms and forced his tongue in my face in my front yard because I was afraid he might hurt me if I didn’t? That didn’t happen either. And if it did? I can see now that it was totally funny and not the least bit terrifying for a latch key kid with no adult at home.

All those other things that happened to me? Times when guys overpowered me so they could put their hands or other parts where they damn well pleased? Well, those incidents apparently didn’t happen either, or somehow I "misinterpreted" them, so I won’t keep going on about those.

Some of my very best lady sister friends really weren’t raped. When I was fifteen, one of my best female friends who was also fifteen at the time did not call me to tell me that she was no longer a virgin because she’d been raped in the parking lot after a concert. My other friends whose first sexual experiences were rape? Must’ve been mistaken. And my one friend? She was never raped at gunpoint in her car in front of her apartment. All my other friends who've been raped over the years? Turns out they were overreacting.

Thank goodness!

I love that men and women aren’t living parallel lives in which too many of half the population is in denial about what’s really happening to the other half.

Such a relief. And such a relief to know that I don't need to bother to teach my daughter to protect herself from the same fucking bullshit women have put up with for literally fucking ever. What was I worrying my little woman head over, again?

Oh that’s right. Nothing.