Some thoughts on the end of Roe v. Wade

Making public what happens in private

I have been pregnant seven times.

I only have two living children.

They’re both daughters, which means that the weight of the end of guaranteed abortion rights in the United States feels very heavy on my shoulders. But I’ve been also thinking about how this might shift the weight of the burden of child-making and childbearing.

I have sat, multiple times, in an obstetrician’s office, eagerly awaiting the confirmation that my pregnancy was progressing, only to be told there was no heartbeat.

I have walked through the parking lot of an abortion clinic while a police officer in a bullet proof vest draped his arm around me and men screamed, “Murderer” at me while making death threats. I’ve looked at the ultrasound of a developing life and said, “I’m so sorry, little guy, but now is not the time. Because I love you.”

I have sat in the ultrasound room of a doctor’s office, six months pregnant, and listened to a doctor talk about “quality of life” and “survivability” and “terminal diagnosis” while I hyperventilated and tried to understand the weight of the reality of my baby dying.

And I have left this world twice, drunk on pain and adrenaline and joy, to go somewhere else, get my two daughters, bring them back to this world, and birth them.

Each of these experiences has left an indelible imprint on my body and mind. The death of my daughter, Ember, convinced me that one truly cannot understand the meaning and weight of human life until one has carried it and, perhaps, said goodbye.

This is why I scoff at men trying to tell women what to do with their bodies. I believe this control is rooted in fear and envy, in a desire to control that which they can neither understand nor do. It’s why I am so deeply offended when men on the Supreme Court—men who seem to delight in the suffering of living human beings, including immigrant children—lecture to women about abortion, implying that women are the ones who do not care about or understand human life.

That’s about to change, with roughly half of all states poised to eliminate or sharply constrain abortion rights.

The one upside I see to this is that it will bring what once happened in the darkness into the light. We’ll no longer be able to put our own bodies on the line, making decisions about them alone. Which means men will begin to see, perhaps for the first time, the consequences of pregnancy and parenthood.

I’m tired of abortion being framed as a women’s issue, because it’s a men’s issue, too. Legalized abortion has allowed millions of men to have happy, carefree lives, confident that their partners would put their bodies on the line and make a decision that made life easier.

I need men to start speaking out about how they have benefited from abortion.

And frankly, I need men to start talking about all the ways they benefit from women’s free labor.

How we’re the ones whose bodies and minds change with pregnancy after pregnancy, with little to no help.

How we improve men’s prospects at work by diminishing our own, endlessly working ourselves into exhaustion at home.

How at every stage of life, women prioritize the needs of men who can’t even acknowledge that it’s happening.

Motherhood is beautiful. It’s also grueling. No one should ever be forced into it.

People are going to die and suffer.

We are not going to be ok.

But I continue to believe that in the end, this will radicalize people.

This will show everyone how important reproductive choice really is.

Please let this radicalize you.