Yes, I am still pissed about the Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v Wade. My husband keeps bringing it up, asking me if I am still mad. And I have lacked the language and the words to explain why, exactly, it is so troubling to have a precedent where woman’s rights to bodily autonomy are summarily stripped away. This decision robs a woman of bodily autonomy and the right to make decisions over her body that are best for her.
Yup, still pissed.
And then we were having a conversation about it last week and I had a thought, after watching an erectile dysfunction medication ad during a newscast.
I turned to him and remarked, kind of in an off-hand manner, “Well, what if men were no longer guaranteed access to ED meds. Because it is God’s will not to have an erection in some men.”
Oh, boy. You’d’ve thought I had just kicked him where it hurts. Right in the babymaker.
He spluttered, incensed, “They can’t do that! This is my body, and I can choose not to have a limp dick!”
I considered this reaction to be a little extreme. And I told him so. He kept going on and on about ED is a medical process and nobody can tell him what to do with his, and other men’s, theoretical erectile dysfunction.
And celebration bells started going off in my head. I mean, ring-a-ding-ding! His reaction, I can use to explain why the Dobbs decision is so disturbing for women. He’s a man, he doesn’t understand, not really.
Next I asked him if a man can choose to have self-determination over erectile dysfunction, I could no longer be guaranteed the same protection over my own body. And is self-determination okay unless a woman is of childbearing age?
Watching realization dawn is a wonderful thing. Even if it is in a man who is very opposed to the Dobbs decision, just not as mad about it as me. At least, until I corresponded the thought that I am still angry to a thing he could understand.
Eureka!
He’s still mad I brought that up and used the argument to explain why I, and millions of women, are still so very pissed, even 5 weeks out. But I think he understands why now, a little bit better.
And he has yet to ask me again if I am still mad about Dobbs. Because he remembers the conversation and knows the answer is yes.
On the subject of men and Dobbs decision, more men are opting for permanent sterilization. I mean, it can theoretically be reversed. I read that a urologist has had an uptick in inquiries about vasectomy, it has gone from 15 a week, to a high of 72. Per week.
This opens a wider conversation about a man’s role in pregnancy as 1/2 half of the equation that makes a baby. And how, for years and years and years, the responsibility for reproductive planning has fallen on women.
It is about time that men realize that they have a stake in this entire baby making process. Welcome, boys, better to be late to the party than not come at all.
And some men are choosing vasectomies because they can conceive (see what I did there) of a time when even that will be taken away from them. Although there are no plans to attack a man’s right to choose or bodily autonomy, I can see extremists thinking that is a mighty fine idea in the future.
Nah, probably not because the conversation has never been about control over men.
This is a reminder that the entire construct has been a method of control over women, wrapped up in baby bunting and using a pacifier.
As always, this does not impact me, being a married woman of 47. Those days are over for me. This impacts all the other women in the country of childbearing age. Our nieces, our daughters, our young friends. I consider all of them under threat, regardless of where they live. Yes, I’m still pissed, and afraid for them.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 