Yes we saw it coming...and knew it was coming....yet today, I was alternately sometimes crying (literally) and sometimes shaking in rage. I was expecting it to hit me so hard, but it did.
I turned on some news, periodically through the day, saw some interviews with people I respect, like Claire McCaskill. I saw she had been experiencing the same thing as me--you could hear it in the shakiness of her voice, the glazed look of her eyes, the tell-tale sign of barely being able to hold back tears. She said she had been fielding calls all day, some from family members, daughters, who were in turn furious or sobbing. I watched Rachel Maddow, and she looked very haggard, like she had aged 10 years in one day.
I got off work early to go to an abortion rights protest. I tried to get arrested (LOL) as a large group of us moved our protest out into the middle of an intersection to block traffic (I got assurances from a wealthy friend she would pay to bail me out if I did indeed get arrested). But nope, wasn't arrested. The cops were unusually tolerant and just kindly shooed us back out of the street. Then, periodically we would go block traffic AGAIN, and the police nicely shooed us again. Some accomplices, masked women, in vehicles sometimes set up vehicular blockages of traffic for us, so we could again pour into the interesection. It became a wierd dance, in and out of the street.
A dance where we were all screaming and shouting in fury and waving makeshift hastily cobbled signs printed on spare bits of cardboard.
Today was very visceral for many women. Someone remarked to me about a very sobering point. This Supreme Court has unmoored itself from all judicial standards. Sooo...what if they get a case, and choose to decide upon "personhood" of a fetus? If they do, if they decree a fetus to officially be a person--and what would stop them from so reasoning, considering the crux of Alito's opinion?--then abortion becomes illegal in ALL cases ALL ACROSS America, including in Blue states, in California, in New York, everywhere. The Supreme Court could, by fiat, enact a complete and total ban. What would stop them? Nothing could stop them. A sobering notion.
A very visceral day, today.
A very difficult day, today.
My sign at the protest, where I was trying hard to get arrested, said simply "Ruth Sent Me"
sigh
