Well, today is the 47th anniversary of Roe V Wade! It has been 47 years since abortion was recognized as a legal practice federally and everyone was given the right to an abortion. Through this victory, we have been able to allow so many people the right to their lives, without having to worry about the thought that they would be forced into a pregnancy that was unwanted or unsafe.
I recently heard that the California governor passed a new bill saying that all college campuses have to provide some type of abortion by 2022. This is incredibly great news! This means that students will no longer have to go off campus and face high co-pays to access a termination. I have a friend at UCSC who recently found out she was pregnant. She had a few hoops to jump through, but knew from the moment she got a positive pregnancy test what her choice was. She was super supported in getting to a Planned Parenthood to have her abortion. It is not like that everywhere.
Abortion is important. It is a choice all people with uteruses need to have. I have been doing more research on the term “Reproductive Justice” which was created by the Sister Song Collective. They define RJ as “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.” This is so important because there are so many factors that either force pregnant people to have their children or stop people from being able to get pregnant. There have been so many indigenous and people of color who have been forcefully sterilized. There also is very limited access to birth control and comprehensive sex education around this nation. People who are pro-birth always want to talk about how abortion is killing a baby, but never want to talk about the sheer pathetic lack of resources one that person has their child and is forced into raising them for the next 18 years.
Despite the government trying to chip away at Roe V Wade, we won’t let them take our rights. We deserve to have the choice of an abortion if we want one. We deserve to decide what is best for our own bodies. People in the government without uteruses should no longer tell us what to do with our bodies. No one knows my body, my life, and my desires better than I do myself. We deserve unlimited access to birth control, emergency contraception, comprehensive sex education, and abortion when we want it. My body, my opinion.
Before I head out, I will say one more thing. People have abortions for so many reasons; everyone of those are valid. You don’t need an excuse to have an abortion. It is okay to never want a child. It is okay to not be financially stable enough to have a child. It is okay to not want to parent a child/be locked into a lifelong commitment with your current partner. It is okay to not want a reminder of your assault. Every single reason for abortion is valid, even if you don’t really have one.
College with Sarah 