There are some incredibly determined women — women who are giving up their privacy to tell their stories of abuse and trauma.
Abortion laws put women’s lives at risk
Some are telling their stories of great physical and emotional trauma after being denied an abortion because of state legislators interfering with a woman’s right to make decisions about her own healthcare in consultation with her healthcare provider. They are speaking up in hopes of getting people to vote to protect abortion rights. Watch Ondrea’s story. Like Ondrea, Amanda almost died, and both women may be unable to ever have children. Or how about Emma, a child with juvenile arthritis who was denied the arthritis medication she had been on for year and needed — because at higher doses, it can also be used for abortion.
They have spoken up to try to increase awareness. They have spoken up, but Amber Thurman cannot speak up. She died after a necessary D&C was delayed because of Georgia’s laws.
Trump claims “credit” for getting Roe v. Wade overturned. To his rhetoric that the decision on abortion is now back with the states, “where it belongs,” PogoWasRight responds:
Bullshit. Neither the federal government, state legislators, or people down the block have a right to interfere with a woman’s right to healthcare and her healthcare provider’s ability to provide it. This is a woman’s human right, not one to be voted on by strangers or politicians.
And then there is Gisèle Pelicot
There is a case in France that defies characterization. From Lily Radziemski’s reporting:
On Wednesday, Gisèle Pelicot addressed a courtroom packed with judges, lawyers, journalists and some of the 51 men on trial charged with raping her at her ex-husband’s bidding.
“It’s true that I hear lots of women, and men, who say ‘you’re very brave,’” she said. “I say it’s not bravery, it’s will and determination to change society.”
Pelicot, 71, has been lauded for waiving her right to anonymity and making the trial public, and her insistence on shifting the blame from the victim to the perpetrators. Every day, dozens of people applaud her arrival in the lobby of the Avignon Judicial Courthouse. On the narrow streets nearby, Gisèle Pelicot is everywhere — on posters, banners and scribbled on walls. The case has attracted worldwide attention.
During a roughly 10-year period from 2010 to 2020, Dominique Pelicot — Gisèle Pelicot’s ex-husband — invited dozens of strangers to their house to rape her while she was unconscious. He meticulously documented the assaults in thousands of photos and videos, which were found on his computer when he was filming under women’s skirts at a supermarket.
Read more at Courthouse News.
Pelicot’s case is not about abortion, but I include her here as an example of women speaking up to try to change society. We could also include here all those women who have spoken up to accuse famous politicians and celebrities of sexual abuse or assault. They have paid a steep price for coming forward with their stories, only to be scorned and accused of lying by supporters of the abusers.
Vote!
There are a million different polls and pundits. PogoWasRight is neither a pundit nor a pollster, but I am a woman who remembers what life was like for women before Roe v. Wade affirmed women’s rights to abortion. PogoWasRight remembers friends who, before Roe v. Wade, had to have back-alley abortions. Does the current generation even understand the significance of a clothes hanger as a symbol of what we must not go back to?
I don’t care whether you’re white, black, brown, yellow, red, purple, rainbow-striped, female, male, or any other identity.
If you care about any female — your mother, your grandmother, your aunt, your sister, your daughter, your granddaughter: vote like their lives depend on your vote, because it does. Stand with them.
Do not vote for any candidate — including Trump — who has any part in trying to limit a woman’s right to healthcare. If there are propositions on your state ballot to protect abortion rights, vote vote for it.
Vote. Vote like their lives depend on it.
I’ll be voting for my daughter and my granddaughter, my nieces, and my great-niece so that they do not have their lives endangered by these unconscionable laws.
Will you be standing with the women in your life? Who will you be voting for?