it's not a thought experiment—it's our lives
It's been a year since this newsletter really existed but today I'm angry enough to not be afraid that my thoughts don't make sense or aren't interesting!
Everything to be said on the death of Roe v. Wade and the loss of abortion rights has been said. It has been tweeted, think pieced, shouted, screamed, whispered, Canva-graphic-ed. This is just something that’s ringing in my head.
I am tired of people who need to be convinced, in roundabout ways. Yes, abortion is healthcare and yes, men benefit from legalized abortion. Yes, there are legal arguments and financial arguments in favor of abortion. There is data, there is evidence, there are stories upon stories of real people who had abortions, who needed abortions. You probably do know someone who has had an abortion. Abortion is life-saving. Abortion matters because you love a person who might need one one day. Maybe you have a wife or a daughter or can imagine having either of those one day. Abortion matters because it’s about more than abortion, it’s about bodily autonomy. I agree with all of it.
What I hate, absolutely despise, don’t know what to do with, is that I cannot tell if any of these arguments turns people around and convinces them to fight, whether it ignites the visceral fear and anger that is evoked whenever matters of reproductive justice are up for debate. I don’t know if the visceral fear and anger is necessary, or even all that helpful sometimes, but I know that I am tired of seeing some people talk about abortion and reproductive rights as a thought experiment, as a game, as an interesting news headline, as a side point to issues of decorum. I am tired of people being able to go about their days, their lives as though this will never come to touch them, and maybe it won’t ever touch them?
I am tired of watching everyone else shout into the void, reformatting and rephrasing a million times over, what ultimately feels like a plea of begging people to care that everyday people suffer and people die and more people will suffer and more people will die because they cannot access safe abortions. I wish people did not have to try to justify (and be expected to do it with rhetoric and distance and “objectivity”) their existences, their lives.
There is a lot of blame and rage and emotion right now, totally understandably. (Except not understandably when it’s excluding or actively blaming trans and nonbinary people who are affected by this!) I guess this is a part of that. It’s not hysterics though. I feel pretty justified. And I know that hopelessness and rage aren’t sustainable.
The death of Roe v. Wade is not an isolated event, it has been years in the making and the leaked draft along with the last several years of transphobic, homophobic right-wing bullshit point to a continued erosion of rights. I want people to care, and I want to believe them when they say they care. I want people to care more than nodding along if the topic is brought up, I want people to think about gender politics and bodily autonomy and LGBTQ+ rights and I just don’t know how to force people to internalize genuine, constant, relentless empathy for other people. I don’t know!
Donate to your local abortion fund here. Read “This Was Always The Plan” by Lyz Lenz and “Democrats, Stop Telling Us to "Just Vote" to Save Abortion Rights” by Lexi McMenamin.
Here’s a terrifying prediction of what comes next:
I liked this framing of why the right is so willing to fight for hypothetical people over real people:
Thank you to Kara and Fumika for your encouragement and Karishma for the title, and for 7 of my friends who voted in my Close Friends IG poll that I should revive this newsletter out of rage.
This: "I am tired of people being able to go about their days, their lives as though this will never come to touch them, and maybe it won’t ever touch them?"
You are a thoughtful and wonderful writer, Anson. I hope you can find time to keep writing this newsletter.