My mother drove me up and my 16 year old baby sister came along. It was her first protest and it was hell dragging her teenage behind out of bed at the "ungodly" hour of 8 a.m. on a Saturday. On the way up I was giving her a speech about what to do if any shit got started because pro-lifers had posted something about "going undercover" to spy on us (which made me laugh...go undercover? Let's see...they think all women like me are whores so does that involve dressing like a street walker? I'm not really sure. But I looked around for anyone dressed like a prostitute when I got there just in case. lol) but, thankfully, there was only one guy who tried to disrupt everything and he was escorted off the premises by the cops before we got there. The sky was gray, rain was coming, but aside from that, everything was looking good when we got there. We were a few minutes late so the speeches had already begun and I think we missed two (one was Mary Jo Kilroy's which was my one disappointment of the day). At one point as we stood there listening to women saying what I've been thinking, what I've been saying, since all of this bullshit began last year, the sun came out. Many, myself included, saw that as Mother Nature's way of supporting the cause. Mother Nature is a woman too, after all. :) For almost two hours I listened to the inspirational words of women and men from all walks of life including a state senator and at some point a great thing happened. My baby sister, the child I raised, started to clap and cheer and get into the whole thing. She listened, really listened, to what was being said in a way that I don't think she has ever listened when I've said that stuff. And not only was I proud of the people who were speaking and the 250 people who showed up and those who stand with us all over the nation who couldn't make it and those in office who do support us, by the end of it all I was also proud of my sister and I was a little proud of myself.
I hope from the bottom of my heart that all of the fighting, the struggling, that women have had to go through for...ohhhh....thousands of years worldwide and for as long as America has been a nation here will be over. I hope that we all stand together and put an end to it now. But in case that doesn't happen or it does but the time comes again when lawmakers try what they are doing now sometime in the future, I know that I have raised another strong young lady who will stand up and say, "I don't fucking think so!" She will fight for her rights, for her daughter's rights when and if she ever chooses to be a mother, and she will not let politicians play games with her life to look good in front of their party. I did not raise a doormat. And for that I am not only proud, I am grateful.
Now, I keep hearing over and over again all of this bullshit rhetoric about the war on women being manufactured, essentially the same "She is simply hysterical" rhetoric that was used by men during the Women's Suffrage movement to keep us from getting the right to vote. Well, here are the facts. Plain, hard, facts. In 2011, 92 laws were passed nationwide restricting abortions. About 12 more have been passed since the first of 2012. Right now there are 235 bills of this nature waiting to be passed in the nation. Think about that...235 bills. That is mind blowing. In Ohio a few examples of such bills are the Heartbeat Bill which would prevent a woman from aborting a baby once a heartbeat can be heard on a sonogram which can happen as early as the third week after conception (while trying to pass this law, the 'testimony' of a fetus was heard in the form of a heart beat and, yes, I am serious. A 6 year old cannot give testimony in court against an abusive parent but the testimony of a fetus is completely admissible...) and my favorite of all of the ignorant bills that has been proposed by numerous states including Ohio, the bill that would give a fertilized egg the same rights as a person. This has been shot down in Mississippi and one other state that I can't recall off the top of my head but is still up for consideration in Ohio, Arizona, and Virginia. In addition to these there have been numerous other bills proposed to defund Planned Parenthood, to limit a woman's access to birth control, and even one that would make it legal for an employer to fire a woman for using birth control. Remember when the Republicans threatened to shut down congress last year if Obama did not give into their bully threats and defund Planned Parenthood? I sure as hell do. Thankfully, he did not give into the bullies.
And it isn't just the reproductive health of women that has been targeted. Let's not forget Wisconsin, folks. The state where a man and woman can hold the same position, do the same amount of work, and the man can make more money because Scott Walker and his pals openly said that money doesn't mean as much to women as it does to men. That is almost as degrading as the statement made by Representative Terry England in Georgia a few weeks ago who compared a woman giving birth to a dead baby with a cow giving birth to a calf who doesn't make it. If you don't remember this, here is his brilliant speech on this:
And what gets me the most is that the same people who are so against abortion, the same people who are so against the use of birth control to prevent pregnancy for women who are not ready for children, often because of financial reasons, are the same people who want to cut programs to feed children when their parents can't afford to, shoot down any suggestion of health care that might save lives, they are pro-death penalty, they stand up at their NRA gatherings....and then they want to call themselves pro-life? They are not pro-life. They would do away with government funded healthcare programs that are already in place to make sure poor pregnant women get the care they need during pregnancy to ensure the birth of a healthy baby so we can't even call them pro-fetus. No, these people are simply anti-women. Unless the women are rich white chicks who keep their mouths shut, aspire to very little outside of their husband's home, and do as they are fucking told. Those women are acceptable. Mitt Romney says that poor women need to have the dignity of going back to work as soon as possible after having children while bragging about how his wife was a stay at home mom. So...only rich women get to stay at home and take care of their children if they choose as opposed to working outside the home? Yes, it appears so. What a load of contradictions these people are spoon feeding us. And I, for one, am fucking sick of the taste.
In two days it will be May. That gives everyone six months to do their damned homework about the candidates they will have to choose from in November. Find out everything you can about who they REALLY are...instead of voting on the (R) or the (D) beside of their names. This is not about party lines anymore. This is about human lives. Those of you, your sisters, your mothers, your daughters, your wives, your grandmothers...It is about standing up for us all and for yourself and saying that enough is enough. No one knows when you go into that voting booth who you are voting for unless you tell them. Do not be afraid of someone else's reaction. Do not let your rights as a human being be stripped away because you didn't want to rock the boat. To hell with rocking the boat. Sink it if you have to. But damn it, stand up for yourself! There are democrats out there voting against women as well. In fact, democrats voting against women is the reason why the legislation I mentioned at the beginning of this post passed a couple of days ago. 13 democrats voted to do it, 17 republicans voted against it. If all of these people were in my state, guess who I would be voting out in November? I don't give a damn about parties. And I will be doing my research to make sure when I go to the polls in November I am practicing what I preach. If you are a republican and you stand beside of women instead of trying to hover above us, I will vote for you. Period. I don't play favorites with politicians over the well being of me, the women I love, and the future generations of women in America.
While you are doing your research, I beg you to ask yourself what each candidate you support who is already in office has done that was good, positive. Compare that with how many rights that candidate has openly supported taking away. If they seem to take far more than they give than, just like with any other relationship, you might want to consider a parting of ways. Because the only people who are going to protect our rights in America today is us. The regular Joe's of the world who have EVERYTHING to lose if we make the wrong choices. Freedom is the one asset America built her reputation on. Let's not sacrifice it now.
Showing Love for PP
I am in the back there...
An Appropriate Song:
By the way, the above pictures are all from facebook. I am not sure who they all belong to because there was a barrage of sharing going on today so if you see one of yours up there, feel free to claim it. And thanks to everyone who was wise enough today to remember your cameras. :)
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