Friday's appalling announcement by the Supreme Court

As much as I try to avoid the national news, I could not miss today's announcement.

"This is an appalling decision that turns the clock back on women's rights by nearly 50 years, taking our country back to a time when women had no choice but to undergo dangerous back-alley procedures. It's the result of a coordinated attack on a fundamental right that the GOP has been waging for decades."

I agree. We are going backward in this country, especially where the rights of women and minorities are concerned. The now politically-minded Supreme Court has done major damage to what women have fought for, have gone to jail for, been abused for, and suffered at the hands of men who do not want them to have rights, not even the right to what happens to their own bodies.

I have known people who had abortions and the people I knew best did so for humane reasons. Before abortions were made legal, mothers died and left children motherless when a back-alley abortionist gave women the only hope they had to stop a pregnancy they could not go through with. 

The first woman whose story I can tell was a young mother of two children living in a rental house in a rundown neighborhood because it was all the family could afford on the husband's income from two jobs that he worked day and night. 

The woman was devastated when she found she was pregnant again. "How can we feed and care for another child?" she asked her sister-in-law. "He is working himself to death, getting no rest, and I am afraid he is going to drop dead out in the hot fields. He has gotten very thin and is exhausted. What will happen to me and my children if he is unable to work?" 

She anguished over the dilemma for days. She loved her children so much and was a good mother. But now she faced the probability of having another child with all the extra expense that would bring. I know it must have been an awful decision to have to make. She loved her husband more than anything and worried about him all the time.

She heard of a place and a person who would end the pregnancy and although it was against the law, this young mother and wife felt she had no choice. She was going to do it for her husband, for her family.

After her husband went to work, she asked her sister-in-law to keep the small children and she caught a ride with a friend. Hours later she was returned to the home of her sister-in-law. She was bleeding and in terrible condition. Remember, this was many years ago when it was against the law for a woman to have an abortion. Women did not have the right to say what should happen to their own bodies. This was way before the birth control pill was even thought of. 

Women didn't have rights that protected them from abusive husbands. They could not deny their husbands. Men made the laws and men had all the power. In some cases, men wanted to keep their wives pregnant and at home with the kids while they sported around at night with other women.

The poor young mother was taken in by her sister-in-law and put to bed. Would she get over this botched operation? With the help of a midwife and other neighbors, the bleeding was finally controlled, but she was in bed for days. Fortunately, no infection built up. She was very lucky that she lived. Many women did not. 

No one condemned her. They knew why she took the risk. They knew she had no legal recourse. They could not even call a doctor when she was hemorrhaging. The doctor could have been arrested for helping her. Much like the laws now in Texas.

Her husband was scared to death when he learned of his wife's condition. He felt ashamed and upset when she told him why she did it. He blamed himself. 

I understand that woman's thinking and pressure. All she could do for her family was feed them, care for them and support her husband who struggled with the overload of labor to make a measly salary.

That is one story but it shows what women might be forced to do in the future now that Roe v. Wade has been overthrown.  

I heard a woman in Texas this week say she was going to have to travel many miles to another state because she had a pregnancy that could not be continued because of health reasons. Luckily, she has the money to travel and get care because in Texas the governor and the state government seem to have gone mad. They have passed laws against abortion even in the case of rape or serious health issues with the mother. Can you imagine your sister, your friend, is pregnant but finds that something has happened? If she continues with the pregnancy, she will die. But in some states even now, she has no recourse. The law says she cannot have an abortion even to save her life. 

In some southern states, pharmacists are allowed to refuse to fill a prescription for contraception. Why?

I think certain fundamentalist religions are behind this kind of thinking. I hear from people in my own state who tell me their churches are very political in this arena. I am proud of my Catholic friend who says she doesn't condone abortions, but she feels strongly that a woman should have the right to choose when she will become a mother and that a group of men in Washington should not have the right to tell her what to do with her own body. 

It hurts me to think about the hard-working brave, strong women who struggled to gain rights for women in this country and see this type of politics played in our Supreme Court. As one woman said today, "We must voice our opinions for women's rights by voting in November." 

I hope to see a huge turnout for those candidates who will fight to keep women's rights front and center, who will stand up to those men who would put down and stamp out a woman's right to decide what happens to her own body.

I don't often get on my soapbox about politics, but I feel it is my duty and my right to voice my opinion on this matter.