We’re back in the 1950’s

BY JOANNE CELI
KONKLIFE WRITER

Talking about politics makes me mad. I was furious for four years, but it was impossible to escape. You can only walk out of so many rooms on Thanksgiving. You can only unfriend so many “friends” on Facebook. You can only change the channel so many times before you give up and go to bed.  

The Nixon years were rough. I spent more of my college days protesting the war in Vietnam than going to class. He escalated the war, so I marched on Washington. I marched for the young men who were dying. I marched for women’s rights. I marched for gay rights.  

Then one day things seemed to be looking up. The Nixon regime was imploding. More and more people wanted that war over. And, miracle of miracles, there was a landmark legal decision – Roe v Wade. By a Supreme Court majority of 7-2.  That was January 22, 1973. I was 21.  

For those early reproductive years, I lived hearing stories of back-alley abortions, of so-called doctors botching procedures that left women sterile, or dead. I heard about the young girls who desperately tried to terminate their own pregnancies with wire hangers or by throwing themselves down a flight of stairs. And the fear finally subsided. By a legal decision. 

Fifty years later and women’s rights are gone. By a Supreme Court decision of 6-3. A court that was stacked with the religious right during the Trump years. The years I thought were over. We’ve gone so far backwards it’s astounding. All that protesting so many years ago. Poof. Useless overnight. For all those, like me, who are not childbearing, don’t think they can’t come for you. I never thought this decision would be reversed. If you think Justice Thomas won’t get his way and come after contraception and gay marriage, think again. What really stops them from going after a woman’s right to vote? Sounds ludicrous, right?

Don’t think those holier-than-thou representatives in Texas, for example, won’t be sending their mistresses to Florida for procedures. And don’t think Florida’s laws won’t be changing soon. The only thing we have power to do is VOTE them out. Vote like your rights depended on it.  

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