Last night, I went to a rally to recognize the 39th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade. It was one of the most mellow (and small) rallies that I've ever been to. NOW provided some signs, and we walked around a traffic circle or stood at one of the intersections. I talked to many committed NOW members; it seemed like many of them knew each other, so I was the new grrrl.
I explained how the whole
personhood nonsense, and other Republican anti-women positions, pushed me to show my support for women's rights and abortion. It's not like I'm a huge fan of abortion, but I do believe in choice. I also believe that banning abortion will have two damaging consequences. The first will be the proliferation of illegal abortions. In the protection of zygotes, real women will die. The second damage will be starting on the slippery slope of taking away women's rights. As a Californian, I already know about losing a right (to marry someone of whatever gender I choose). It's inconceivable to me that the majority is okay with taking away a minority group's right. And for religious reasons, nonetheless! But it's true and it happens, and banning abortion will open the door to taking away more women's rights.
Wikipedia's description of personhood mentions debates about the personhood of African Americans when slavery was being abolished, so it's really not that much of a leap to worry that the personhood of women themselves may be questioned. If women are unfit to make choices about their own bodies, may be they're unfit to make any decision? It all moves closer to
Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction. I don't want to be a handmaid (
book or
movie version)!
Arg. I get so angry when people try to tell me what to do.
Back to the rally... While meeting many of the NOW members, and some people from a local rape crisis hotline, I kept hearing about how this is the first year that the anti-protesters haven't been around. Apparently, they usually come with bullhorns, yelling mean things, and a truck with pictures of bloody, dead babies on it. I, personally, am glad that they weren't there. There was one anti-protester, but he just walked quietly in the opposite direction of us with his sign.
But I wonder why more anti-protesters didn't show. Is it a good sign? Do they realize that their position is insane? Or is it a bad sign? Do they think that they have the votes and power to do whatever they want? Or, it is neither? May be the anti-protesters really did take Sunday as a day of rest? May be it was too dark or cold for them? May be they forgot it was the anniversary? Or may be they'd just rather stay home to watch football. I hear that there was a big game or something on.
The only aspect of the rally that I didn't really like was the fact that everyone single person there was White. It was mostly women, but that's to be expected. The Whiteness of NOW has always bothered me. It saddens me that NOW is made of White women, fighting for (White) women's rights. The issues that women of color have are not so clear cut, and require more sophistication and collaboration to deal with. You can't just say, "We want legal abortions" because of the fear abortions used as a form of genocide by women of color. We can't fight for equal pay for women when people of color are receiving drastically lower wages. We can't fight for the end of stereotyping by gender without ending stereotyping by ethnicity.
And the list goes on.
I'm not sure that my presence at the rally helped anything, but I at least got off of my butt and tried to live my values. What have you done?
