Your Complicity Will Not Protect You
Anti-choice women: Your bodies are on the line, too
Watching Roe v Wade get overturned last week was hard for so many reasons: Thinking about what to say to my 11-year old daughter, who now could be forced to carry a pregnancy in some states despite being a child herself; knowing how many women will have their lives upended, be jailed, or die needlessly; and, of course, the gutting pain of living in a country does not see you as fully human.
Then there were the women—some of them so very young—celebrating outside of the Supreme Court, jubilant that the right to abortion was no longer protected. I was incredulous that they could betray other women with actual smiles on their faces. Was the patriarchal pat on the head really worth it? How could they possibly live with themselves?
Most of all: Did they really not understand that their bodies were on the line, too?
Somehow these women convinced themselves that their collaboration with the men who made this happen—and their submission to the misogyny that fuels anti-abortion beliefs—would keep them safe.
But their complicity won’t protect them. The women who fought to overturn Roe are beholden to the same laws that ban all of us from getting essential care. And while they may not realize right now how their lives will be impacted, they’re sure to find out how wrong they are—and in the worst possible ways.
Fighting alongside anti-choice lawmakers—most of whom have zero understanding about the bodies they are legislating—won’t save a conservative woman if she has an ectopic pregnancy and lives in a state that bans abortion. Her collusion won’t allow doctors to move faster as they assess whether they’ll lose their medical license or be jailed if they offer her help.
Protesting outside of an abortion clinic won’t stop a woman from being denied cancer treatment if she gets sick while pregnant and lives in a state that says an embryo is more important than her health and life.
A ‘pro-life’ woman who is miscarrying will still have to risk infection, sepsis and death if her doomed fetus has a lingering heartbeat. If a woman has a pregnancy that is incompatible with life, she will have to carry a suffering, dying baby no matter what her politics are.
And like the many, many, conservative women who have quietly gotten abortions despite their public beliefs, it is very likely that one of those women celebrating outside the Supreme Court will pregnant and simply not want to be. Like the rest of us, she will have no choice.
It’s true that privilege can protect you. If you are white, have money, and the ability to travel to a state where abortion is legal—you will have a much easier time than those from marginalized communities. But there is nothing that will make anyone immune. We are all in danger, even the women who got us here.
Even if anti-choice women are lucky enough to never need abortion care, the same lawmakers who fought to make abortion illegal are also coming for birth control—something that 99 percent of American women will use in her lifetime. These are the legislators who vote against paid maternity leave, pay equity, and funding for domestic violence shelters. The women who align themselves with them are supporting an ideology that would happily ban them from voting, having credit, or the freedom to divorce.
When you codify the lie that our bodies are not our own, everything is on the table.
I would like to say that I can be the bigger person, and that I will fight for these women’s rights with the same vigor that I would anyone else. But I can’t. When you collaborate with men who believe you are fundamentally less than, and you throw other women under the bus, you can’t be surprised or hurt when your body gets run over alongside the rest of us.
And while anti-feminist women have always benefitted (and I’m sure will continue to) from the work that others have done on their behalf, I hope they’re ready to wait at the end of the line. Because my empathy is fucking expired.
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Yes, this. I find myself actually hoping a lot of these complicit and enabling right wing women will die of pregnancy complications and maybe it would be a wake up call to the motherless children and other family members and friends they leave behind. I know that’s wrong, but it’s how I feel. I have no forgiveness for anyone who votes Republican at this point and that sadly includes a lot of once-beloved relatives who no longer have a place in my life.
I really feel this. One way I relate to this is that I am an Indian-American and I’ve had to watch for years as Indians in our diaspora ingratiate themselves to right wing white people partly out of an innate racism toward fellow (darker) Indians, I.e. our still existing caste system and partly out of a belief that they are viewed as the white’s preferred minority. It is stupefying to watch brown people cozy up to out-in-the-open white male oppressors for kudos, cash and comfort within this wretched hierarchy. Which is all to say that it leaves one especially hollow to see this type of allyship fail and shows the enduring psychological grip that the promise of power holds on individuals. It makes intersectional allyship that much more critical because we cannot take for granted that the oppressed won’t become collaborators to their own oppression. As usual thanks for spotlighting this insight!