26 states are working to reduce or remove protections for people with uteruses following June 24th’s Supreme Court ruling. If you are in a position to help, consider donating to one of the many abortion funds in your area, or go to https://secure.actblue.com/donate/supportabortionfunds?refcode=nnafwebsite to make a donation.
The line between the personal and the political does not exit, cannot exist, if we intend to live in and create an equitable society.
The balance between the personal and the public is trickier. I’m open about my identity as a queer person, as a transgender man, because those are things related to the work I’m doing with this blog as well as the formation of my experiences. As I continue my professional and academic career, I may need to be more circumspect about those pieces of myself depending on things like workplace culture, state protection for trans people, and the level of safety I would experience if I were outed, intentionally or otherwise.
It is for this reason that the USA’s Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe V. Wade this Friday is such a devastating blow to the personal sphere. For people with uteruses, because it’s not only women that are affected by this decision, they will now be reliant on state protections if they want to retain rights to their own bodies.
Further, one attack on a minority group constitutes an attack on us all. Allowing the government to turn a blind eye to the plights of nearly half of it’s population opens the door for additional state or federally mandated restrictions and repeals of existing rights.
Access to birth control, which serves myriad purposes beyond contraception, will likely get increasingly difficult in many states. Healthcare services, such as pap smears and STI testing, are likewise difficult for people with uteruses to access. Clinics such as Planned Parenthood offer affordable access to these kinds of medical services, but experiences a large amount of verbal and physical violence outside of their clinics. PP offers abortion services at many of their facilities, which results in vitriol and hatred, despite the face that PP offers every possible option prior to abortion services possible. Reducing a country’s abortion rate begins with comprehensive sex education-PP provides such services.
Speaking of sex ed in this country, it is abysmal. Maybe we should begin by educating young people, and all the adults that missed important details, about their bodies, the bodies of other humans, and how they can interact with each other. I went to a public high school in IL. Let me tell you what I learned about sex in my Health course’s sex ed unit junior year, I think it was the fall semester. I would have been turning 16 that December, I was the youngest in my year, and it would have been 2006, not that long ago.
Our sex ed unit started with a graphic slide show of genitals affected by severe STIs. We were told having sex made it nearly guaranteed we would get one of those diseases, and that some of them were permanent.
It gets better! I obviously don’t remember every detail, it was awkward and embarrassing and I think my face was bright red the entire unit. I remember the class could choose their own seats, though. I was living as female still, and sat with a friend. One side of the classroom had all the female-aligned students, and the other had the male. We were young and uncomfortable looking at each other, so we naturally separated.
A guest speaker joined the classroom one day. She was a “survivor” of a rough lifestyle. She spoke about her past use with drugs and how the inside of her nose became “swiss cheese” from snorting so much. And then she brought out a rose, turned towards the female side of the classroom, and started pulling petals off, one at a time.
“Ladies,” she addressed us, “your virginity is like this rose. When you start, you are young, and beautiful, and fresh. But every time you behave inappropriately with a man who is not your husband, you give a part of yourself to the garbage. Each time you let a man touch you, you tear a petal off yourself. Eventually, all that will be left is this ugly, used up, stem. And then on your wedding day, all you have to give your husband is your wilted, ruined, rose.”
Woah. That’s, fairly traumatizing, actually. Because if the only reason your husband marries you one day is for your virginity, I have some things to tell you. It gets WORSE though!
She THEN told us that we had to always safeguard our virture, because boys at this age are going through significant hormonal changes, and can’t always control themselves. If we were kissing our boyfriend, for example, and he got aroused, that was our fault. If he asked for relief, well, we had already sinned by arousing him, the kind thing would be to give him that relief.
This was a public high school.
Until I was an adult, and well after I had been pressured into two sexual relationships I did not want, I did not know anything about contraception, my own body, or that sex could be enjoyable. Every woman I knew in that conservative home town, minus my mother who I STILL cannot talk about sex with, spoke about sex as something to be endured rather than a partnership between two people.
And what about queer people? I didn’t know you could and SHOULD use protection in same sex relations because of STI risk. I couldn’t get pregnant when I dated or slept with women or other people with bodies like mine, so I didn’t even know to think about it.
What about consent? How do we teach the consent of sex? Not well, clearly. There is NO situation where you are required to give sexual favors/relief/gratification. You own your own body.
Well, the government would like you not to, if your body happens to have a uterus. My upbringing was certainly not universal, but it also isn’t unique in conservative, especially Christian, environments. Raising women to be obedient, submissive, and compliant seems to be the result of these kinds of lessons. Your body does not belong to you, it belongs to your future mythical husband. I think this is why the abortion conversation keeps going back to bodily autonomy. Many religious conservatives object to abortion on religious grounds, they view a fetus of any developmental stage as a complete human. However, that is based in religious opinion, and if we are serious about the separation of church and state, that cannot be the basis for which we create laws.
Did you know, pregnant people have less rights to their own bodies than corpses do, in this country? You see, a person who has died may have functional organs that could be life-saving for someone else. But unless that person is a registered donor, a decision made before their death, or their family consents, those organs cannot be used even if they would save the lives of others. But a pregnant person cannot make decisions about the health and well being of their own body.
And how far does that level of control extend? I only gained the legal right to marry my husband in 2015 when I was nearly 25 years old. For others? They waited a lifetime or more just to be able to legally wed their loved one. It’s called the Marriage Equality Act, and it allows same-sex couples to wed and be protected by the same rights different-sex couples have. This is still separate from religious ceremony, as the decision to get married in a church has nothing to do with the legal civil marriage license. And yet, even with this act in place, many Americans still lack the right to marry. Disabled people, for example, would lose access to life-saving benefits if they marry and their combined income rises above the threshold. In my state, that level is just $1310 a month. The average rent and utilities bill for a 2-bedroom in IL? $1084/month. That leaves less than $300 a month for food, health insurance, transportation, clothing, household supplies, etc.
Other Cases at Risk of Overturning
The following cases have been cited as at risk, and mentioned in the concurring opinion of Justice Clarence Thomas as “in need for reconsideration.”
1965 Griswold v. Connecticut ruled the right to marital privacy superseded an existing law banning the discussion of and access to contraception. This ruling confirms that the constitution DOES protect couples accessing such medications. Martial privacy was cited as intrinsic in the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 9th amendments.
The 9th amendment, by the way: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” (aka, the PEOPLE have all rights not listed specifically, not the government).
2003 Lawrence v. Texas ruled the criminal punishment of those who commit sodomy are unconstitutional. 2003! OK first, let’s talk about sodomy for a brief moment.
Currently the definition we use is “sexual intercourse involving anal or oral copulation” and you can see why LGBTQIA+ couples have been disproportionately targeted with such laws. BUT the original use of the word in the medieval period was like a catch all for any type of perversion, and at certain points in history, can even refer to heterosexual, but pre-marital, sex.
2015 Obergefell v Hodges confirmed the right of same-sex couples to access marriage licenses and the legal, civil, benefits that come with it.
Final Thoughts
The abortion rate has been steadily declining since 1970. In part due to the increases in access to healthcare, education, and contraception. Removing these protections will not decrease this rate further, the alleged goal of such laws, but will increase the rate at which people are made to live through unwanted, unviable, or non-survivable pregnancies.
Meanwhile, the number one cause of death for children in the USA has become firearm death. In 2020 4,368 US children up to age 19 were killed by guns, TWO THIRDS or which were homicide victims. That’s nearly 3,000 children. This rate is also rising steadily due to mass shootings, and the increasing suicide rate. A further 30% of that initial 4368 were children that committed suicide, a rate that also will likely increase if legal protections for people with uteruses, LGBTQIA+ people, and other minority groups, are continued to be repealed. For a brief period of time following the legalization of same-sex marriage, the suicide rates did drop significantly-7% as a whole in the age group, but 14% in the age bracket for LGBTQIA+ identified children.
Now, some people look at that rate and assume it’s a causation-LGBTQIA+ kids are killing themselves, their identity must be the problem. However, it is clear by the dropping rates surrounding legal protections, that it is not a question of identity but of acceptance. Did you know, having only one accepting adult can reduce the suicide attempt risk by 40%? Those supported by family are half as likely to make a suicide attempt as those who aren’t, and those who live in a community with acceptance likewise experience significant reductions in suicide rates.
In terms of abortion rights? Let’s look at Switzerland briefly, the country with the lowest abortion rates in the world. In Switzerland abortion is legal through the 12th week (at any time after that if there is severe threat to the parent’s health), and the procedure is covered by public health insurance. 70% of the country’s voters rejected the attempt to remove this coverage in 2014. After legalizing abortion rights by popular vote in 2002, rates have mainly dropped or remained consistent. Throughout most of the 200’s, rates held around 7% (compared to the USA’s 16%), and they have even dropped to 6.4 after 2013. These numbers are attributed to the country’s healthcare system, widespread and comprehensive sex education, wide access to contraception, and the country’s socioeconomic level.
What I take away from all of this rage research-there are definite constitutional problems in the USA, but they shouldn’t be the ones worrying about what people do with their own bodies in the privacy of their own homes and relationships. If the right truly cared about the lives of children, they would be working to reduce access to guns, increase and create access to comprehensive sex education, and move to a universal healthcare system which would cover and protect all people regardless of identity.
Queerly Beloved 
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