Under His Eye

Herself speaks.

Abortion is under threat of becoming illegal in the United States.  Affordable health care -- including availability of birth control and prenatal care -- is becoming harder and harder to obtain. It feels as though womankind is under siege, with our ability to control our childbearing and our fertility slipping, slipping, slipping away through our fingers.

Here are a few thoughts.

The Women
I know multiple women who have had abortions. Each woman's story is unique, and not one made their decision lightly.

• The college student who needed to finish her degree in order to be able to make a life for herself and her future children.
• The young single woman whose strict family would have made her life a living hell for having an out-of-wedlock child.
• The married woman whose fetus carried a severe genetic defect.
• The married mother whose new pregnancy triggered a fast-growing gynecological cancer, who had to choose between trying to bring the pregnancy to term before dying, or terminating the pregnancy to receive treatment and live to see her toddler grow to adulthood.
• The mother whose birth control failed just as she had begun a new fast-paced job that would enable her to dig herself out of the post-divorce financial hole.

These are just some examples. As I wrote them out, I found myself writing their explanations -- as if it is only acceptable to terminate a pregnancy for Certain Good Reasons. Yet: each woman has a Good Reason for herself. Whether her reason is a "good enough" reason for the rest of the world is immaterial.

The Sex
So much shaming of women for being sexually active. "They should just close their legs."

Well, that's (disgusting) oversimplification.

Sex is part and parcel of the human condition; a vast majority of men and women have sex. I cannot speak to male motivations, only to female ones -- and women seek out sex for so many reasons. For intimacy, acceptance, a feeling of being loved and desired. For escape from the banality or difficulty of daily life. To please another person. A biological urge. Because when done right, it feels good. Because of  pressure from peers, a lover, or a partner. Because they feel as if they have no choice. It's a complicated, multi-faceted decision, even when some of the choices are made subconsciously.

Why do lawmakers get to legislate what circumstances and reasons are acceptable for a woman to have sex? And why are they hell-bent on ensuring it is difficult for women to prevent (let alone terminate) pregnancy?

The Men
Women aren't getting pregnant by themselves.

Where are the men in the policing of sex? What is the impact on men? Simple: None. Men are always free to walk away; to refuse to acknowledge a pregnancy; to decline to pay child support; to ignore a child.

Why do men get a free pass, and women bear (literally and figuratively) all? And what is so threatening to them about women being able to choose when, and if, to give birth to a child, that it is being made increasingly difficult for women to do so?

We can exclaim that it is a power play based on a desire to keep women subservient. That might be true. There may be other reasons as well -- for example, a deep-rooted urge to control what other people do and don't do. Why? I do not know.

I can hardly bear to think about these things. They fill me with despair. And with fear for womankind.

I will do what I can to help.

 

Handmaidens found at www.syfy.com, here:

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/under-his-eye-the-handmaids-tale-wins-yet-another-award