PHILADELPHIA – Since May 3, 2022, Philadelphians have been on fire over the looming SCOTUS decision to strip women of their rights over their bodies. Dozens of protests have been held throughout the downtown area in the last few weeks, joining with women across the country to fight back against the impending post-Roe world.
Like the groundswell of protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, many of those coming to protest are doing so for the first time. Just like that summer, this summer is predicted to be a “summer of rage.”
“If you can’t decide what happens to your own body, if that’s not fundamental, what is,” said Brita Van Rossum, a 62-year-old landscaper from the suburbs of Philly. She attended her first protest at the US Capitol Complex this past weekend on a National Day of Protest for Abortion Rights.
The SCOTUS decision also allows for a host of other rights to be stripped from Americans, such as the right to same-sex and even potentially interracial marriage. Several states are already looking to ban contraception, and Texas’s Gov. Greg Abbott is seeking to challenge Plyler V Doe, which could lead to Texas excluding immigrant children from receiving a public education in the State.
“Contraception, the ability to get abortion, same-sex marriage those Supreme Court decisions, and even marriage, have been grounded in what they call an unenumerated right to privacy in the Constitution,” said Melissa Reed, President of Planned Parenthood Keystone.
“Republicans have long been at war with women, poor people, and people of color, if it’s a fight they want, they got it,” said Rachel Carmona, executive director of the Women’s March. “The right has really jumped the shark with this one and we’re coming for their seats.”
The recent rise in right-wing legislative and physical attacks on women, the working class, people of color, and the LGBTQIA communities has galvanized Philadelphia youth. During a coordinated walkout involving at least 5 local high schools last week,, students called for abortion on demand, Medicare for all, and investment in Philly schools and communities.
“We call for free abortion under a Medicare for All system with gender affirming care!” said Eric Jenkins to a raucous crowd of students.
“For women this will be a summer of rage, we’ll be ungovernable until this government starts working for us, until the right is done attacking our bodies, until the right to an abortion is codified into law,” Women’s March President Rachel Carmona said.
Women of color will be impacted the most by the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Black women are 3 to 4 times more likely to die during childbirth than white women.
Black women often aren’t listened to by their doctors and are believed to have higher pain thresholds than they do. This often leads to an increased likelihood of adverse health outcomes for the mother and the baby, including an increased mortality chance.
Women of color are more likely to live in poverty, which leads to higher rates of adverse economic health and social outcomes when abortions aren’t available.
The irony of all this is that for the Right, it’s not about the positive or negative impact on black and brown people. It’s about the absurd racist notion of some great replacement. White racists believe they are intentionally being replaced by nonwhite, non-Christians, with Jewish people orchestrating the whole thing, perhaps while using their space lasers to pick which Becky or Chad to replace.
We already understand we’re up against insane far-right fascism in America, so what do we do about it.
We organize in the streets, in our neighborhoods, in religious institutions, and at the ballot box at all levels of government for the rights of women, LGBTQIA people, communities of color, immigrants, poor people, and the incarcerated. All of the struggles faced by our communities are interconnected, and we need to view them as such.
We donate when, where, and how we can, you know what you can do and afford.
We take off the kids’ gloves and start fighting as dirty and strategically as the fascists have been and are while caring for and taking care of each other and ourselves.
We don’t give up, but pace ourselves. We understand that we are not in a sprint, but a marathon.
We should have lost trust in SCOTUS a long time ago. Read Dread Scott. How are we supposed to trust and respect the law at all? Disgusting.
Excellent point, the legal system in America is designed for and by White Christian men and it has been like pulling teeth just to recognize the rights of ANYONE who doesn’t fit the description. That said it’s up to all of us to make the demands and force the changes we all need.
Do you really imagine, for one moment, that you can convince me — a compassionate human being (who is appalled by images of babies in the womb being torn limb from limb) — to come to the table for a conversation about abortion by calling me a “far-right fascist”?
No, I don’t, and if I gave one iota of a fuck about your opinion, I would have asked for it, but since I don’t give two shits about the views of far-right chsito-fascists, I didn’t.
But since you’re spreading your extremist propaganda, I’m going to do a quick google search to debunk it. I found you’re full of shit, you might not know you are full of shit, but you are. The reality is that those photos you speak of aren’t of an aborted fetus. They’re from stillborn deaths that anti-abortion extremists such as yourself misrepresented as being an aborted fetuses. They’re from improperly disposed of stillborns from health clinics’ biowaste bins in the ’80s and ’90s.
But hey, since you want a seat at the table, how about this for a compromise? since neither you nor I have a vagina, we can offer universal male vasectomies if you care so much about the fates of nonviable fetuses ( that is what we’re talking about after all). Vasectomies are reversible, and they don’t force women to have children they aren’t ready for or don’t want. They won’t be forced to carry the fetus of their rapists or abusers, and they don’t have men controlling their bodies. Seems like a reasonable compromise to me.
What you don’t like the idea of the Gov. telling you what to do with your body?
Personally, I’d shit a brick if the Gov. or some religious wing nuts wanted to take my right to make decisions about when to have children away from me, or what decisions I made with my doctors about my reproductive health away from me. I’m also not advocating to do that to women either, because I’m intellectually consistent.
Well, Mr. Clark,
I’m a very old man. I’ve been around the block a few times, I’ve heard the voice of fascism, and it sounds very much like yours: smug, intolerant, filled with hate and abusive invective. As I have no desire to hear any more of it, I’ll leave you to your own self-loathing. At my age, a vasectomy would be something of a joke, but you go ahead if it will help you feel better about yourself.
Wow, you know how to call’em a Jewish guy defending a woman’s right to her own body is the fascist,is the closed minded one not the old man standing with other old Christian men to force their fake Christian values on the vast majority of Americans who don’t believe as tou do. Okay, and since when did respecting women and their rights become self hating? I’ll bet you assumed I was a CIS white male who should be looking out for the “replacers,” didn’t you? Shucks must suck that I’m one of them commie Jews behind everything!
Thanks, Cory, for expressing the outrage and disgust so many of us are feeling.
You know me always willing to go to the mat with intellectually dishonest weaklings who bully and gaslight vulnerable people.