From Stop Patriarchy
"Nobody should be forced to have a child they don’t want."
August 31, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On the university campus, in Austin, TX, we asked students whether they knew there will be only six abortion clinics in the entire state after September. Many didn’t. A lot of people knew about the Wendy Davis filibuster, but they had not heard that abortion clinics continue to and will be closing.
A middle aged woman who had five children with her, stated abortions were illegal throughout Mexico, and only legal in Mexico City. She said they shouldn’t take this right away from women. We read from the flyer, “When abortion is illegal, women die…” She nodded in agreement.
A young woman took a flyer and continued walking until we said “Let’s protest.” She stopped, turned, took off her earphones, walked back up to us and asked “Where?” She was enthusiastic about going to a protest.
A woman from Colombia read our sign “Did you know…” She said it’s wrong what is going on with the abortion clinic closures and restricting women from getting abortions. She said in Colombia, it is already illegal and women have to travel to Uruguay.
We talked to a teenager who said it should be a women’s right to be able to decide for herself to have an abortion without all these people telling her what to do. She said she didn’t understand why anyone would ever tell someone what they could or couldn’t do. She talked about being kicked out of classrooms for arguing for women’s rights and “being disruptive.” Sex education is minimal, and students can opt out of sex ed very easily, which results in very small classes “taught by an ‘old’ 40 year old man.” She was raised by her mother to think for herself and question the status quo. She said her grandfather was gay, and she totally supports him.
People take a long time to realize what’s actually happening, she said. It has to affect them, somehow. It’s not until they know someone who has died. In order for there to be a law which requires passengers of a vehicle to wear seatbelts, people died.
Yet it’s true that women are already dying, and every 15 seconds, a women is beaten, raped, and killed by their loved ones. The rate of self-induced abortions in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas has one of the highest rates of self-induced abortions in the country (12% of women going into the last abortion clinic in the Rio Grande Valley, which has since closed, said that they had already tried to induce before seeking the clinic’s care.) In every part of the world, women are treated as less than human. A woman is not safe in many places, and she is more likely to be abused or murdered in her own home by someone she knows. This is a fact and a part of reality, yet we don’t see people rising up. There is not a mass of people saying things should not be this way, although that can change relatively quickly, but it cannot happen if people who understand what is going on are compelled to not only confront reality but to act to change it toward a world that does not condone or perpetuate the enslavement of women. There are many courageous people educating about this, but there needs to be a critical mass of people rising up and saying no more!
"Everyone is different and should be treated differently. It’s not just about equality," she explained. This isn’t just about rights. We should be struggling for women’s liberation. She said, "Nobody should be forced to have a child they don’t want."
Forced motherhood is female enslavement. People need to tell the truth with confidence and certitude like this teenager. What Stop Patriarchy is saying is not hyperbole and is not for shock value. The shocking matter is women and girls are already inducing their own abortions. The shocking thing is women are told to believe it is their fault and should be apologetic and people are told to be sympathetic to unborn fetuses.
Fetuses are not babies.
Abortion is not murder.
Women are not incubators!
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