Every time

[breathedout]

Feeling pretty cynical & discouraged about the domestic gag rule announcement, or—not even the domestic gag rule announcement, not this one; not this time more than any other; it's not like I'm surprised; but feeling pretty cynical & discouraged about the political role of reproductive healthcare as this threat and bargaining chip perpetually held over the heads of women and all people with uteruses and the desire for control over their own lives, who then have to beg, borrow and cheat in order to try to get cis men to care about their humanity; feeling pretty cynical and discouraged about how every time this stupid rule is put back in place, which is done as a display of pure power and political clout, it abrogates bodily autonomy and the ability of particularly low-income people to shape their own futures; feeling pretty cynical and discouraged about how transparent the administration—any administration! pick one! my favorite was the Bush II administration which reinstated this rule on their first day in office!—is in their lack of any genuine moral principles or investment in lowering abortion rates or bettering the health or well-being of infants, let alone the parents of those infants if the parents of those infants aren't white people with a household income of $200,000 or more a year.

It was sort of my formative "shit is more fucked than you knew" moment, when I was working for Planned Parenthood and that Bush II edict came down; and every time it comes back around I am punched in the guts by it all over again, so. That happened today, which was cool.

Comments

[lazaefair]

I'm about where you are. At this point I can't think of any way to get through to deeply conditioned evangelicals, to untangle the entire twisted Gordian knot of dogma designed specifically to distract them from how grossly distorted and immoral their religion is when held up to the actual words and priorities of their supposed savior, in the bibles they don't read. I just don't know.

It literally took me needing to get an abortion myself to shock me into really questioning what I'd been taught about it. But it's not like we can go around physically (or ethically) implanting fetuses into people to force them into developing some goddamn empathy.

[breathedout]

Yeah. I don't know either! Oh well, the fight will go on. But it is intensely frustrating and dispiriting. :-/

[verymorstan]

i am with you in gut-punched solidarity. i would try to say something to ease the 'oh fuck', but i don't think that there is anything. *offers drinks*

unrelatedly, i only just moments ago worked out -- after listening to lupin say many warm and impressed things about your journal and thinking, 'aw man, i must not be on hbbo's approved list, i never see her posts' -- that i had somehow neglected to subscribe to said journal. this failure has been remedied, with my apologies. /o\

[breathedout]

Aw, thank you, friend. *Accepts those drinks & then some*

And ha, no apologies necessary but it's always nice to reconnect with you! <3

[chestnut_pod]

It's the teeter-tottering that really gets me. It feels like we've been in this back-and-forth cha-cha my entire life and it won't ever actually make up its mind in either direction, just so, as you say, it can be dangled over all our heads forever.

[breathedout]

God, exactly. It feels like this thing which shouldn't even be a political issue, which should just be a basic part of healthcare, is always going to be either inaccessible or on the verge of becoming inaccessible. It's maddening the amount of energy required just to keep from going backward.

[dancing_crow]

It was Reagan who started it, and then the back and forth of Dem and Repub presidents repealing and reinstalling it makes each new iteration of it harder to stand. Gutpunched is a solid way to describe it.

[breathedout]

Yeah. Add it to the long list of reprehensible things Reagan's responsible for, I guess. It really is the back-and-forth that's particularly galling, and wears a person down.

[dancing_crow]

He heads my list of people to find the graves of, and dance on them. Reagan, Nixon (he's still dead) Thatcher, Bush 1, Strom Thurmond...

[virtual_particle]

.....(internally screaming) This particular ongoing nightmare. It continues to make me worried and frustrated and etc etc for so many people. Gahhhhh.

[breathedout]

Ugh. I know. It's awful. :-(

[fennishjournal]

I don't even know what to say to that.
Would you like a hug?

[breathedout]

<3 Thanks, I would love a hug. *Hugs*

I'm usually pretty okay at managing the political fatigue, but sometimes it just gets to you!

[fennishjournal]

*hugs*
Yeah, managing the fatigue and anxiety is tough. I sometimes give myself media blackouts when I just can't stand it anymore but that is obviously not a long term solution.