Weekly WTF
America. Again.
I hope you’re all taking care of yourselves as best you can. I’m feeling alternately numb, heartbroken, enraged, and traumatized. And a new, hard to describe feeling, which is just sort of existential exhaustion caused by having a uterus and being a parent in a country which makes clearer every day that it hates parents and people with uteruses.
Today’s the last day of the subscription sale, and I wish I could put a peppy spin on it or make a joke about summer vacation not being a vacation for parents, but I’m all out of pep just now.
Here’s the link if you’d like to upgrade your subscription and support my work. In any case, thank you for being here.
Your emails, DMs, and comments bolster my deep-rooted belief that so many people in this country are beautiful and good, despite the fact that we’re being ruled by a toxic, hateful, majority who are intent on retaining power at all costs.
I’ll leave you with these words from Jia Tolentino:
For me, no alternative but to keep fighting with the people in reproductive justice who have been working in anticipation of this moment for a decade or more; to refuse paralysis and commit to never getting used to minority rule; to understand this as another damning reminder of what happens when the rights and lives of poor and marginalized people are not understood as the bedrock of justice and fundamental to our own. Follow @advocatesforpregnantwomen. If you don’t already support a local abortion access group, find one (@abortionfunds) and follow the work; do it on your own and actively, don’t wait for a disaster or another person to prompt you. In the words of Mariame Kaba, always: let this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair.
And these from anti-racist educator Amanda Faun:
Since the decision came down to end abortion rights as we have known them, I have continually witnessed harm and erasure of BIPOC by those who view reproductive rights through a Whyte feminist lens. While it is TRUE that this loss affects all birthing people, it simply DOES NOT affect us in the same way. Reproductive rights and reproductive justice are very different movements with very different goals. The main difference is that reproductive JUSTICE is a framework built by women of color through an intersectional lens.
If you are not considering the intersection between reproductive rights, racism, and socioeconomics you are not "doing feminism". Feminism is inclusive. It centers the most marginalized. It rejects WHITE SUPREMACY....or it simply contributes TO HARM.
And these from Rebecca Traister:
Resources:
Abortion funds by state, National Network of Abortion Funds, Abortion pills, an excellent comprehensive breakdown of what the dissolution of Roe v. Wade will mean, and how we can fight it by Annie Wu.
Sending love and comfort and solidarity in whatever broken feeling you might be feeling.