If you believe abortion is healthcare, recent legislative abortion bans will get women killed, and that ignorance and hubris have held power over women’s bodies for too long, then now’s the time to be angry. And you have every right to be angry, as writers like Rebecca Traister are pointing out far better than I can:
I am of course livid at the Republican Party that has been working toward this for decades. These right-wing ghouls—who fulminate idiotically about how women could still be allowed to get abortions before they know they are pregnant (Alabama’s Clyde Chambliss) or try to legislate the medically impossible removal of ectopic pregnancy and reimplantation into the uterus (Ohio’s John Becker)—are the stuff of unimaginably gothic horror. Ever since Roe was decided in 1973, conservatives have been laboring to roll back abortion access, with absolutely zero knowlege of or interest in how reproduction works. And all the while, those who have been trying to sound the alarm have been shooed off as silly hysterics.
Here are a few opportunities on Tuesday, May 21, for you to express your extreme displeasure at the vicious and misogynistic abortion bans getting passed by Alabama, Georgia and Missouri.
First up is the ACLU People Power Event: Stop the Bans protest at the Huntington Beach Pier. From noon to 1:30 p.m., “people will show up to speak out and fight back against this unconstitutional attempt to gut Roe and punish women,” according to the event organizers. There will be Handmaidens there, as well as extra costumes (if you get there early). Go here to register.
Other noon events in OC will take place in Mission Viejo at the corner of Chrisanta Drive and La Paz Road; Irvine at the corner of Alton Parkway and Sand Canyon; Fullerton at 749 Toussau Drive; and San Clemente at 208 Terramar.
Then at 5 p.m., there will be an Our Bodies, Our Choice Rally in Brea at the corner of East Imperial Highway and State College Boulevard. It’s organized by Indivisible CA-39.
“The movement for reproductive freedom and justice is ramping up, following Alabama’s passage of a total ban on abortion this week,” Brea event organizers said. “And as a wave of other extreme laws stripping reproductive freedom sweeps the country—from Georgia, to Ohio, to Missouri, to Texas—we will step out and fight back against this unconstitutional attempt to gut Roe v. Wade and criminally punish women.”
There will also be a rally in Irvine at the corner of Culver Drive and Alton Parkway at 5:30 p.m. Organizers for that event ask attendees to bring signs, costumes, energy and co-workers.
Anthony Pignataro has been a journalist since 1996. He spent a dozen years as Editor of MauiTime, the last alt weekly in Hawaii. He also wrote three trashy novels about Maui, which were published by Event Horizon Press. But he got his start at OC Weekly, and returned to the paper in 2019 as a Staff Writer.
Everyone for murdering babies is already alive. How about a protest where they really make a statement and all kill themselves?
Hey, Dean and Brian!
Come and get me you forced birth fascists!
How about some stranger breaks into your house while you’re asleep, jams a knife into your body and forces you to comply while he breathes and licks all over you while finally jams himself inside your body. The pain of his forces inside your body is undescribably excruciating. Finally, he finishes inside of you and makes you lay there while he paws at you in an attempt to clean up after himself while your bleeding not only from your throbbing injury but also from your burning, ripped genitals. Now fast forward 2 months when you’re still a heaping mess from this crime while you desperately try to reclaim your life only to discover you’re pregnant with this monster’s baby. Let me know how you’d deal with this and how you’d handle another seven months reminding you of this awful crime, I don’t even need to know you to know that you, a man would never be able to handle this atrocity much less the pain of labor to deliver a child. OUR CHOICE OUR BODIES! Watch your words because you are not able to have children or to be raped and assaulted as easily as a woman can. Be sensitive to not just the unborn but to the woman that has to shoulder this burden when a crime has been committed against her!
All babies are a gift from God. You murderers will go to hell
Typical unenlightened stances, @Brian and @Dean.
Can you say anything to move the conversation forward? ‘Cause ya bombed so far.