*Editor’s Note: Elephant Journal articles represent the personal views of the authors, and can not possibly reflect Elephant Journal as a whole. Disagree with an Op-Ed or opinion? We’re happy to share your experience here.

~

She tells me she has an unpopular opinion.

I brace myself…

Is she a fascist, a sexist, homophobic?

No—she doesn’t believe that anyone should have a baby in this world until all the children have a home.

I want to scream but I am silenced.

Silenced like the woman living in a far away place supporting her six children on a dollar a day, waiting for her husband to come home so she can be raped.

I can feel my heart pulsating in my chest.

Like how that girl from Alabama‘s heart pulsated when she realized abortion was illegal in her state.

I want to cry.

I want to cry.

I want to cry.

I want my tears to wash away the pain of each indigenous woman in Saskatchewan who had her tubes cut and tied—cut like the bond between her and her first child who was ripped from her to be raised by the system.

Until all the children have a home you say?

They all had a home, a home that was built on the patriarchy.

They had a home, a womb that did not belong to their birth parent, but one that was controlled by misogyny.

Now I am pissed.

Angry like the gay couple who cannot adopt overseas.

Pissed like the couple who spent 10 years trying to conceive.

I am pissed that your “unpopular opinion,” built on your love for children, is fraught with privilege. I am pissed that you don’t see that you have that choice when so many don’t.

You have an unpopular opinion you say?

When we make grand statements, let us not forget the circumstances that have allowed us to make those statements to begin with. When you say that “nobody should have children,” remember that most people right now don’t have the option to choose.

The issue is not that the world is “overpopulated”—the issue is that we live a world that is full of reproductive injustice.

~