It seems like every week there's a new story on yet another freedom our world is attempting to strip from women. Whether it's abortion access, IVF access, the freedom to discuss menstruation in schools (and provide information/help on this to of-age children), or the most recent; the return to female genital cutting, there seems to be no limits to how far lawmakers across the world will go to control women. It's not only appalling, but downright inhumane.
They tell us, you can't get an abortion no matter what (even if your life is at risk...but remember, we're pro-life)! Oh, you want kids? Well, now we're limiting IVF, so tough luck. Your daughter got her period in class and needed the teacher's help? Not our problem. You want to keep your genitalia intact? We think it's best to cut and sew you up.
It's mutilation. It's traumatizing. It's choice-stripping. It's a death in every sense of the word.
It's a wonder how we can go about our days at our 9-5 jobs when our lawmakers are declaring war against females (and those who identify) across the globe. How do we sleep knowing that in the next state over, an eleven year old rape victim is being forced to have a child? How do we cope knowing our best friend who has tried to get pregnant for years and is in the midst of IVF has been told that her practice can no longer move forward? How do we comfort our sisters across the world who have been victims of genital mutilation, who are now unable to bear children due to men who deemed their bodies worthless in a blatant attempt at control?
The devastation is only increasing, and it's truly never been a more important time to vote. While men may feel less of this impact, it is just as important for them to feel our fury, our fear and our drive to put people in office who uphold women's rights. This is an attack on your wife, your sister, your granddaughter's freedom, and it's imperative that we have the support of the men in our lives to help us fight these injustices thrust upon us.
We deserve the right to reproductive healthcare. We deserve bodily autonomy that allows us to make choices that best serve us. We deserve to learn about our bodies at a young age when scary changes are happening to us and get help, especially at school. We deserve alternate methods of conceiving, like IVF to create our own families. We deserve respect for our bodies and reject mutilation practices (that, by the way, have zero medical benefits).
We are strong, and we will fight back, just as the generations of women who came before us. I can only hope there comes a day when the suppression of women ceases, but today is not that day.
To every woman: I cry with you, I mourn with you, I stand with you—and make no mistake, I'm fighting like hell with you.
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