In honor of the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, NARAL is holding the 5th annual Blog for Choice Day!I would like to start off with a response to the Newsweek blogpost in The Gaggle about this years Roe v. Wade Anniversary March. I'm slightly offended by some of the assumptions they made.
For example, this years march is shorter and is earlier in the day than in previous years. There could be many reasons for this alteration, but the blogger thought the only clear choice was that "the organizers are getting older, and it’s more difficult for them to walk a long distance". Excuse me? Just because a lot of the protesters are some of the original participants in the abortion movement are over 60, does not mean that they have difficulty walking.
The Gaggle also assumes that there is going to be a lack of young feminists because “older generations had friends and family members who died of complications or found themselves sterilized because of abortion. Young women today don’t have that personal connection.” While we may not have a connection to the past, the current threats to abortion rights are direct threats to our bodies. Abortion laws may not affect our past, but they affect our future so it is our responsibility more than anyone else's to make sure our rights aren't threatened.
Younger feminists are criticized for not being as out there as past generations of feminists. Because of new technologies that allow us to stay home and still reach thousands of people through blogging, we receive a lot of slack for not knowing how to protest. Well I would like you all to know that today I am going to blog and protest. So take that Newsweek! Maybe we are a little physically inactive, but we are able to spread our feminist voice in other methods. You just need to trust us.
This brings me to this year's Blog for Choice Day Question is: What does "Trust Women" mean to you? This is in honor of Dr. George Tiller's famous tag line and button that he frequently wore.
I think that "Trust Women" is one of the more powerful pro-choice statements. It is concise and manages to tell people to stay out of everybody else's business without being offensive. Simply, just trust women and the decisions they want to make about their body and their lives.
Everyone is constantly telling women what to do, what to think, who to be, what to wear. Why is it that people think they have a say in our lives? They say they are trying to protect us from the big bad world, but is it really because they see us as incompetent girls who are unable to decide what is right for us? You don't know me, how could you possibly know what's right for me? Get out of my life and away from my uterus! TRUST ME! You need to trust all women because believe it or not, they are people to.
To see more blog posts about trusting women go to NARAL's Blog for Choice
