Fia Porter
NYC
Hi. I started work on abortionmanifesto.com, during Hurricane Sandy in November 2012, while my family & I were holed up in our NYC apartment for a week. It was an intensely political time, during the denoument of the US presidential campaigns of Williard "Mitt" Romney (R) & Barack Hussein Obama (D).
My information fetish made me acutely aware of the stakes of the election (and Sandy) in a visceral way I'd never before experienced. From Nixon to Obama, I'd kept myself informed. I was pleasantly surprised by Obama's 2008 win, & I then understood, respected, & rejoiced--I was living history--the good kind, not like Sandy.
But the US--roughly half of it--wretched at the thought of a 2nd bite of Black President, & hideous bile--that we thought America had digested for wisdom & shat out the rest--came heaving out intact. Open race hatred. Absurd propaganda. Intentional, manipulative, patent lying. Fear mongering old people. Rank greed & ambition. Xenophobia. Craven condescension & patronization. Brazen voter suppression. And a full-court press for government restriction of the individual's fundamental, exclusive rights in his/her own body & the use & reproduction of his/her own genetic code. Theretofore, I'd have been disgusted by the spectacle & voted, but that's about it.
But the 44th US President, so happened, would appoint a multi-generational winning margin of Justices to the divided Supreme Court. Roe vs. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) the lynchpin of US reproductive rights to end a conception, not just prevent one, is susceptible to attack & reversal b/c it applies law to reproductive situations using genetic & biological human knowledge circa 39 years ago. Progress often renders Supreme Court bright-line decisions arbitrary. We could indisputably use a Roe 2.0.
B/c I well know that w/o my 2 abortions--let alone years of hormonal contraception--the life I've led & enjoyed & the family I have now (& my abortion-partners' 3 children) would be impossibilities. I cannot imagine myself or my child living under the tyranny of unintended pregnancy--no matter the circumstances of conception.
I feared for my life. Never again.
fp