Outrages Acts and Everyday Rebellion Against Anti-Abortion

After hearing the news about the Supreme Court’s leaked draft opinion on Roe v. Wade, I was left reeling. This has been my fear since former-president Trump stacked the Supreme Court with conservative judges that were adamantly against abortion rights. 13 states will outlaw abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

I spent the day trying to figure out what I could do. Looking at the news, I discovered President Biden urging voters to elect pro-choice Senators and a pro-choice majority in the House, but as someone who lives in a democratic state, I wouldn’t be able to make a difference in the states that mattered. I did however find the National Network of Abortion Funds, a grassroots organization that supports the specific needs of a community. According to their website abortionfunds.org, these needs extend to funding procedures, abortion pills, transportation and lodging, childcare, doula, or emotional support. I thought, okay at least I could donate some money, but could it ever be enough?

I found myself looking to the past for answers. I stumbled on a biography about Gloria Steinem and listened to the trials and tribulations she dealt with while paving the way for feminists. After I finished that, I found an audiobook version of Outrages Acts and Everyday Rebellion. While listening to it at work my boss came up to me to ask me a question and I took out my headphones apologizing for not hearing him because I was listening to the audiobook.

“Which one?” he said.

“Do you know who Gloria Steinem is?” I replied.

“Of course. I don’t like those radical feminists,” he said. I froze momentarily, for even though in comparison I am not the activist Steinem was, I am one of those feminists.

“You don’t like feminists?” I asked.

“Don’t get me wrong all women should be treated equally and get paid the same amount. I think all people should be treated equally.”

“So you are a feminist. What you described is feminism,” I said. (To some degree at least.)

“No because I find feminists unfeminine and women should be feminine,” he said.

“Women come in all different forms,” I replied.

“No,” he said. He muttered some other blatantly ignorant things before walking away and I was left angered. I was already mourning all the uterus having people whose rights will be taken away, and now not only was a man acting as if feminist is a dirty word, he was shoving his gender conforming ideals onto a woman.

I’m sharing this exchange to show that many people are still fundamentally confused as to what feminism is and we need feminism now more than ever because our society seems to be moving backwards instead of forward. Why do we need it? Well because creating anti-abortion laws will end up creating harm for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, banning abortion won’t stop them, they’ll become unsafe and some could be potentially fatal. Secondly, it could push more people further into poverty from hospital bills to taking care of the child. Thirdly, the pregnancy could’ve resulted from rape or incest. Lastly, the pregnancy could be unsafe, such as an ectopic pregnancy. This could result in the death of the child bearer. And most importantly, none of these reasons matter. No government should be able to control what we do with our bodies, it should be our decision only.