“No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her own body.” -Margaret Sanger, 1920, known as the mother of reproductive-rights rhetoric, who also coined the term, “birth control.”

On October 2, 2021, thousands of protesters gathered for the 2021 Women’s March, all over the nation, in all 50 states, to stand up for women’s health care rights, specifically for abortion rights.

“We are witnessing the most dire threat to abortion access in our lifetime,” the Women’s March Network said on its website, noting the Supreme Court’s recent refusal to block Texas’ six-week abortion ban. “We need to send an unmistakable message about our fierce opposition to restricting abortion access and overturning Roe v. Wade before it’s too late.” 

Indeed, this is the worst and most devastating attack yet on a woman’s right to choose, to choose when it’s her time to become a parent, to choose when her body will change forever, to choose when her life will change forever. 

This notion of which the Governor of Texas Greg Abbott claims, “She has six weeks to decide,” is not only ridiculous and senseless, it is FALSE!

To briefly explain how biology works, six weeks pregnant means a woman is two weeks late on her period. TWO WEEKS. 

There are an array of reasons as to why women can be late, including stress, sickness, medications, or it’s just typical. Two weeks does not give enough time to find out, decide, and schedule an abortion if she chooses. 

Why is it that people feel the need to tell women what they can and can’t do? Why does society believe they have to create laws to restrict and force women into decisions against their will?

There always seems to be this misogynistic idea that women need to be told and pushed into doing the “right” thing. As if we are too mentally incapable of making our own decisions, of making up our own minds. 

This belief can be traced back centuries when women were seen as property. “Women don’t know better, so men need to show us the way.”

I attended the Women’s March 2021 in Monterey. It was exhilarating. Men and women came together to fight for what is right, for women to have fundamental rights. 

It is unconstitutional, unlawful, and an extreme violation of human rights to take away a women’s right to choose what happens to her body. FULL STOP. 

Taking away abortion rights won’t stop abortions; it will only take away safe abortions, which means lives will be lost.

It’s imperative to stand together and protest this abhorrent assault on women’s rights as if our lives depend on it because it does.

SSxx