The Supreme Court privately voted to overturn the Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision, a leaked draft opinion shows. Senator Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it could become one of the “most damaging decisions in modern history.”

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— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 3, 2022

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I was upset when Trump and Republicans pushed through Amy Coney Barrett a couple of years ago.

One, because I knew it could mean the end of Roe v. Wade.

Two, because of the hypocrisy. The same Republicans, who wouldn’t allow a hearing on Obama’s nominee in 2016, pushed through Barrett’s nomination in a matter of weeks—literally right before the election.

I’m sick of all the hypocrisy.

Republican lawmakers who preach the sanctity of marriage but cheat on their wives.

Who talk about states’ rights, until it comes to abortion, where there’s now talk about wanting to make a federal law to ban abortion.

Who threaten government shutdowns, which freezes salaries for government employees—yet still, through the freeze, continue to receive their own tax-payer-funded salaries.

Who vote against funding Ukraine, and then complain about why there’s not enough being done to help Ukraine.

Who talk about individual liberty—yet want to make laws that determine what women can do with their own individual bodies. What is more individual than that?

Who talk about being pro-life—when it’s clear that they only mean that selectively.

It can make me so mad I feel like there’s fire burning inside my chest, and then I also feel sad and helpless—because I feel like there’s nothing that I can do and I don’t understand how people can actually support them.

Those same rich men who cheat on their wives will still have access to abortions (for their mistresses) because they’ll be able to fly anywhere to get them done.

As usual, the poor will be the ones who suffer the most.

Let’s be clear: no one should be able to tell me or any other woman what we can do with our bodies.

What actually harms individual liberty?

What happened to the separation of church and state?

Of course, I’m sure, conservative extremists wish that didn’t exist either.

Oh, let’s not forget two other points:

1. Women don’t get themselves pregnant.

2. If men were the ones who got pregnant, this wouldn’t even be a conversation. Abortion would be legal everywhere. It would probably be free. Maybe even promoted.

Also, if they’re going to ban abortion, they should make laws that make the men who impregnate the women equally responsible for the care for that child (in all ways)—meaning they should be culpable financially for all hospital visits during the pregnancy as well…but, of course, I don’t see them making laws like that. Do you?

There are many things in this world that anger and frustrate me.

And many things within the U.S. alone.

I’ll just leave it with one more.

There’s a collective energy or idea within the United States that it is the greatest country in the world, and one that will inevitably remain a “world power”—that it is immune to “falling.”

But America as a “world power” is not inevitable. In the grand history of all of existence, the United States as a nation is barely a blip; it barely registers.

The United States will turn 246 years old this year. The Byzantine Empire ruled for over 1,000 years. Think about it.

And yet Republicans will also scream “un-American” if someone criticizes the United States.

Or takes a knee.

But blind nationalism is dangerous.

And it’s not even helpful.

It hurts the country itself.

Just like we as individuals do not grow if we ignore our “less nice parts,” so too does the country suffer if we do not talk about the problems within it—about the ways it’s not working.

We also must look at its darkness.

Which includes a history of racism, prejudice, and discrimination—all of which are still playing out today.

Banning books isn’t going to change the fact that America has a history of slavery.

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