052: Let's Not Pretend Everything Is Okay
Or, I'm angry and I'm wondering if you are too.
I had a nice, inspiring essay scheduled for today about pulling weeds and building habits and that sort of thing, but in light of the news out of the Supreme Court, it all feels so trite. I suddenly can’t muster up the energy to care, really, about anything except the Supreme Court’s attack on civil rights from every goddamn angle this week. Separation of Church and State? More dismantled than ever before. Guns have more rights than most minority populations. And now Roe is gone, something we knew was probably coming but is still infuriating to see enacted.
Not one of these changes is supported by a majority of the population in the US. This is a rule of a minority over the majority. These decisions are the first steps toward the implementation of a Christian theocracy, one which the first European settlers explicitly came to North America to avoid.
(Do not tell me to vote. We have voted and, obviously, it didn’t work.)
There’s a long and storied history of Americans rioting to protect their civil rights, and I think we can count on seeing more of that in the coming weeks and months.
Over on Unruly Figures, I unlocked the episode I did about the Jane Collective, a group of abortion providers in Chicago in the 1960s and 1970s. They were performing these medical procedures as safely as they could without real medical facilities. They treated thousands of patients. Thankfully, no patients died receiving care from Jane, though some were severely injured—a trade-off that is now the best people can hope for in 22 states around the US.
They’ll come for contraception, gay marriage, trans medical care, and interracial marriage next.
What will they come for after that?
What will it take to stop them?
If you can, donate to abortion funds. Prepaid gas cards for people who have to travel long distances to the nearest abortion provider make a great donation. And finally, here’s an abortion resource kit for anyone who needs more information.
