Clockwise Cat Strikes Back

I Want Our Movement Back
By Diana May Waldman
I want our movement back. It almost seems lost and I want it back. I want us to move out
of the fear and away from the political jargon, the talking heads. I want them to stop
telling lies about women. I want them to get off Planned Parenthood’s back. Stay out of
our vaginas and keep their hands out of our shirts.
My mother, a staunch Catholic, defied her church and took birth control pills. She didn't
want any more kids. She already had four mouths to feed and piles of laundry.
I watched her evolve from a homemaker with four kids, to a woman who listened to what
she was hearing outside of her door. She wanted what the feminists of the 60s and 70s
were talking about.
Yet, she quickly learned that the once unified groups of women began to divide when
there was talk about "Right to Life" and "Pro-Choice."
It was Roe v. Wade. And most didn’t realize that Roe v. Wade had little to do with
owning our bodies, and our right to do this or that, but was a ruling that had more to do
with the time when a fetus could be considered a human life.
People just drew a line in the sand. Failed to talk about what it really was.
Because then, nobody wanted to talk about it. It became easier, less of hassle not to give
your opinion, but instead sneak those pills or risk a coat hanger abortion.