The end of Roe, although very much anticipated, has nevertheless been a shock, especially with the reality of what its actual termination portends for American democracy.
My fifteen-year-old granddaughter messaged me on the day of the decision with the news, which I had already received from my niece. My forty-year-old stepdaughter also texted me with the news, which she found alarming. My granddaughter referred to the ruling as “terrifying,” and my niece, who is fifty years old, was outraged – a testament to the solidarity among many women over the abortion issue regardless of age, race, or creed.
The most difficult aspect of the ruling for me is the realization that my granddaughters will have fewer rights than I did at their age. I was twelve when Roe became the law of the land. By the time I became sexually active, birth control pills were readily available at the local Planned Parenthood for a nominal fee.
Those days were long passed in Ohio even before Roe was overturned; nevertheless, the finality of the decision is devastating and depressing when considering that my granddaughters and too many American women of their generation will have no legal avenue for terminating an unwanted pregnancy.
The developments in the US with an anti-democracy Republican Party bent upon exerting its sense of morality and misguided interpretation of Christianity upon the rest of American society has cast its shadow over American life for many years. The decision to end Roe feels like what I would liken to the proverbial nail in the coffin of American democracy and a semblance of civil society. It’s appalling and gut-wrenching to think about the backsliding and regressive nature of a battle ahead in which predominately old, white, rich, and power-hungry men have stacked the deck to assure their victory and their will in many areas of American life.
I feel certain that the fight will continue, but at my age I am doubtful that I will live to see the day when government corruption is largely rooted out and justice prevails in America.
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