PREACH!!
As an AFAB (still identify on the feminine part of the gender spectrum) person who got SA’d on multiple different occasions (5, 7, and 11 years old for the cases where I or the perpetrator weren’t fully clothed, there were other occasions though, but they didn’t really affect me as much) And tend to fear falling in love with people, even if I trust them: Being pregnant is scary in any case, whether you want to keep the pregnancy or not, it’s terrifying.
To any ‘pro lifers’ (more so pro-birth) or people who are confused or uneducated about pregnancy and birth:
•Pregnancy puts the person’s life at risk, and permanently affects the body even after the baby is born.
•non viable pregnancies can be mentally and physically devastating for people involved, and should be aborted for the pregnant person’s safety.
•Non viable pregnancies include: if a newborn is guaranteed to die after birth, stillborns, fetuses with severe defects, the pregnant person definitely not going to survive giving birth (such as children that are pregnant, people with severe health issues, some intersex and trans people, etc), and more
•if abortion was only allowed if the pregnancy was caused by SA/R@pe, many people who were SA’d/R@ped wouldn’t be able to get abortions anyway, because most SA/R@pe cases don’t get reported, aren’t brought to court, are deemed false by court, etc.
•There is a difference between life and personhood. Plants are alive, but don’t have personhood. A human corpse isn’t alive, but has personhood. A fetus is technically alive, but isn’t a person.
•if you think abortion is murder because a fetus has life, then farming is murder, picking mushrooms or roots is murder, taking antibiotics and getting vaccinated would be murder because bacteria and viruses are alive.
•Abortion is healthcare. An established life of a person is more important than a fetus with no personhood or consciousness.
Have some memes for your travels:
the "I believe in abortion only in extreme situations" people (especially women) truly baffle me because I genuinely consider "a human has another human growing inside of them and does not want to" to be a very extreme situation. to me that feels so deeply like an extreme emergency situation. I know this has been said before but it's incredible to me that this does not feel innately horrifying and "extreme" to everyone.
every time I talk about my own abuse for the sake of justice or awareness, all the words punch the back of my throat, a heavy thumping that spills from my mouth like the ugly mess it was. it’s still so painful and emptying and numbing all at the same time. It feels like I spoil the conversation, that I’m being uncouth or impolite. my story has no place anywhere.
a glass just empty, full of unoccupied space. a head tangled with words. I’m still confused about the concept of justice. and love. and forgiveness. it just feels unfair. just feels so wrong to make my own body’s safety into a movement or a form of activism. I don’t want to be loud or strong or empowered, I just want to be safe.
this world, full of its misogyny and hatred towards women, doesn’t help. The vilification of victims in the media makes me feel even smaller. the internalisation of misogyny, undermining my own pain because of my body’s “crimes” doesn’t help either.
my voice sometimes doesn’t feel like my own. my body never feels like it belongs to me. all this activism and anger and pain and I still can’t shake the feeling.
I worry about other girls. I worry about their voices being stolen not only by their abusers, or society but also by themselves.