April 11, 2022: Survival and Choice

How we fight now determines the future

Hey there, and welcome back to The Newsletter.

Last week, a woman was arrested in Texas and charged with murder for self-inducing an abortion. She was reported by hospital personnel when she sought medical care.

Over the weekend, the charges were dropped, but the point was made: Roe is all but gone (we await confirmation of its demise in a Supreme Court ruling this Spring), and the lives of everyone who can become pregnant in America will be inexorably altered as a result.

While states are taking matters into their own hands— my own state of California has affirmatively said that it will be an abortion sanctuary state— not everyone can afford to travel for abortion, and abortion funds that would provide the means are under direct threat in places like Texas.

I was born the year before Roe v. Wade became the law of the land. For my entire adult life, the right to access abortion was guaranteed to all who needed it (within certain limits that are now non-existent in most places). I, like many, assumed that this right, once guaranteed, could never vanish. I was wrong.

Many of us seem to be focused on how we got here, to this terrifying place where women will die because abortion won’t be legal. But how we got here is obvious: denial of abortion has long been a part of white supremacist patriarchy, and wealthy far right donors have been on a decades-long campaign to pack legislatures and courts to remove the right to abortion from our list of guaranteed rights.

There is no mystery to it. So many of us saw this train coming down the tracks years ago, only to have our shouted warnings minimized and denied.

So the question now becomes one of the future, rather than the past.

And just so we’re clear: abortion is only one of many, many rights under attack by white supremacist far right forces determined to destroy anyone who demands the power of self-determination.

The question of the future, of our survival (or not) across the broad spectrum of humanity, depends on whether we choose to fight for everyone, or fracture and divide and fall prey to individualism and propaganda.

I’ll have more to say about this in the coming weeks but it seems to me that if we want to make it to a better future, what is required now is an understanding that all marginalized people deserve dignity, whether you share a given identity or not. If you stand for the right to choose, you must also stand for trans folks. If you stand for women’s rights, you must also fight for the rights of workers to unionize and be safe from abuse and earn a living wage. If you stand for Medicare for all, you must also stand for democracy here and abroad, and against autocracy, white supremacy, and hate.

Why? Because capitalist white supremacy is coming for all of us, and when one of us is harmed, all of us are.

We all rise and fall together. And our survival depends on whether we choose to understand that our fates are inextricably linked, that the tiny minority of folks holding power in this country will do whatever it takes to retain it, and that we, collectively, have the ability to change that.

I am pro-choice and pro-abortion. I am also pro-humanity, and I believe in the power of the people to create change. I fight for the dignity and freedom of all of us.

Our survival depends on what we choose to fight for, now more than ever.