In spring of 1992, my friends and I joined hundreds of thousands of people in the March for Women’s Lives. We marched to the Capitol before the Planned Parenthood v Casey decision was handed down to declare our support for women’s healthcare and our right to determine what is in our own best interests—in other words, our right to self-determination and autonomy. What a beautiful day. What a utopia of strong women.
But it didn’t last. Of course.
Returning from that awesome display of sisterhood to a college campus full of conservative evangelicals in a southern state full of the same—that was my reality.
Arguing with would-be patriarchs in my college philosophy classes (I was often the only woman in the room) and getting anonymous bible tracts in my mailbox—that was reality.
Walking through protest lines with friends to access healthcare at clinics in town—that was reality.
Because after all, a woman’s right to full healthcare has never been a settled issue, especially here in the South.
I know how good they are at playing the long game. They believe that they have everything to gain and everything to lose—in an eternal sense. Metaphysically, not just existentially.
As Dylan said, “…you never ask questions when God’s on your side.” You can’t argue with a zealot.
I’ve known for a long time that they’ve been encouraging white, fundamentalist, Protestant families to be fruitful and multiply.
I’ve known for a long time that homeschool curricula steeped in fundamentalist Christian theology have increased in popularity, even outside of the home.
I’ve known for a long time that they are teaching their kids to deny scientific inquiry and Enlightenment values.
I’ve known for a long time that they’ve been educating ideologues in their universities and law schools so they can stack the courts.
I’ve known for a long time that they’ve been educating ideologues in these same universities so they can fill political seats all the way down to school boards.
I’ve known for a long time that they have been accumulating capital and investing wisely in lobbyists and PACs.
I’ve known for a long time that they’ve been stumping for anti-abortion, Christian nationalist political candidates from pulpits and encouraging church members to vote straight down a pre-approved checklist.
I know that they experiment with power in third-world countries by supporting and helping draft draconian legislation that punishes and even kills women and LGBTQ+ persons.
I know that they’ve been setting anchors in this country by passing “religious freedom” laws—laws that favor a supposed negative right to avoid moral offense when providing public services like basic healthcare and medication.
They’ve spent at least the past decade lying about and tearing down the services of Planned Parenthood and chipping away at its status as a trusted neighborhood healthcare source for poor (often minority) women.
And I’ve known for a long time that they’re not going to stop with abortion. Saving babies isn’t the end goal of their longest game.
That goal is nothing short of a “supernatural transformation of America” and an utter transformation of American culture.
They want to stuff the revolutions of the last century—contraception, mouthy women, out queers, and uppity people of color—back into the bottle.
They want to shove LGBTQ+ people back into the closet.
They want to ship all the non-white and non-Christian people elsewhere.
And in the past week, they’ve rolled back domestic violence protections and redefined sexual assault to cover only the most visible of crimes against women and abused partners.
They want to return the United States to that wonderful time that never was—a time that exists only in their fantasies where they are in control. They want to “make America great again.”
Even knowing these things and living through these times, I’m still amazed at the rapidity of the onslaught and coordination of this attack on women, LGBTQ folks, and persons of color.
Are we paying attention?
Crabaghast! 