Member-only story
“Mama, I Just Heard About Roe, I Had To Call.”
My daughter lives 4000 miles away, but she knew that the woman who taught her about her birthright would be in pain.
I thought she was visiting friends in the country. When I heard the news that I knew was coming, I reached out to my sisters who were tied up. So I sat in front of the TV, trying to absorb what has happened, and what could happen.
I sat dumbfounded, aghast that our freedoms could really be taken away. Fifty years. Fifty years that span my college years to now. I had a girl child who would be ushered into the crap women have had to put up with forever. But I thought that at least there would be the essential humanity of being in charge of herself — body, mind and soul.
Her privacy rights were hers, and hers alone. As were mine.
I felt called to motherhood. And with that came the resposibility to teach her to demand her autonomy, to protect her body, to sharpen her mind, and support other women. I didn’t have to teach her to be a good, compliant woman.
She needed to be feisty. She needed to resist words she actually taught me — like patriarchy and privilage
.I lost two pregnancies and I shudder to think about my accountability for them in the eyes of the pregnancy police.
