BUTT OUT YOU MAN

Greetings. I am a voting constituent in rural west Texas. Reading just now that a Texas woman has been arrested for murder by allegedly performing a self-induced pregnancy termination. I know you don’t have a clue what it’s like to be pregnant when you don’t want to be. Or how it feels to have that sense of finality. Of desperation. And you certainly don’t have a clue about any of the stories behind the women who seek their constitutional right to control their own bodies. Your daughters, your wives, your granddaughters, will always be able to find a way to exercise this essential right for bodily autonomy if necessary. And I would seriously doubt if they fell under any of the other extreme laws passed in other states, such as having to carry their rapist’s baby to term, you would force them to do so. Would you? I grew up in Texas before Roe vs. Wade. The lucky ones got to go to Mexico. The unlucky ones got to go to unwed mothers’ homes. The really unlucky ones were forced to marry at 17 to a heroin addict, just so they wouldn’t have the stigma they faced being an unwed mother. That would be my story. We all have stories. And to think that the state you lead, the state you allowed to make it impossible for women to feel other than breeding machines, cannot recognize our humanity and right to self-determination, our personal FREEDOM, is dystopian. And a crime against half of your constituents. You are not god. You have no right to do anything you’re doing on this issue. States’ rights be damned when it comes to me and my body.