4/19/06

to all the women over 45: We're sorry.

s and i have been planning this weeklong pro-choice demonstration against the christian coalition. the turnout -- for alabama standards -- has been wonderful. the press coverage more than we dreamed. people we've never met are showing up every day.

and yet.

yet i can't help but feel like we're moving backwards.

a friend of mine who's 50 emailed me yesterday and said, "we've already fought this fight! what is going on?!"

and she's right. i feel this nagging need to apologize to every woman over 45, every woman who was there in the 70s on the streets, who was there in the 60s and 50s and before, when abortion was dangerous and often meant getting maimed or shunned or killed.

they already fought this fight. and now, it seems, we need to fight it again.

it isn't that women my age don't give a damn. it's just that we thought those crazy, right-winger loonies were too nutty to be taken seriously. we thought access to abortion -- that private and personal and sometimes-painful decision over what to do with our own bodies -- just made rational sense, and so who would ever successfully try to take that away?

but then shit happened.

"the christian coalition wants to ban abortion in america."

that's a joke, right? that we, in 2006 for christ sake, would be talking about this. debating it. seriously. in state legislatures across the country.

now we have states passing abortion bans, and laws giving fetuses rights that trump those of the women in whose womb they're being carried, and organizations that once were relegated to the margins of right-wing radio and southern-style revivals being hailed as heroes by the republicans we accidentally voted into office.

so to all the women over 45: we're sorry. we'd rather be fighting a new fight, too, if it makes you feel any better. we know you're tired, and you might feel the urge to throw up your hands and stay home and say, "what's wrong with young women these days? why'd they drop the banner?" but the truth is, we need you. one more time.

No comments: