FOCUS: Rebecca Traister | Our Fury Over Abortion Was Dismissed for Decades as Hysterical

18 May 19

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18 May 19 It's Live on the HomePage Now: Reader Supported News ON A BINGE TO SAVE RSN NOW - CHIP-IN! - Of the 280,000 readers who have visited RSN already this month only 362 have clicked the donation link in the newsletter and made a donation. We have to do better, you have to do better. Now is the time. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News Sure, I'll make a donation! FOCUS: Rebecca Traister | Our Fury Over Abortion Was Dismissed for Decades as Hysterical  Rebecca Traister, The Cut Traister writes: "I have been thinking, like so many people this week, about rage. Who I'm mad at, what that anger's good for, how what makes me maddest is the way the madness has long gone unrespected, even by those who have relied on it for their gains." EXCERPT:  As it comes into view, I am of course livid at the Republican Party that has been working toward this for decades. These right-wing ghouls — who fulminate idiotically about how women could still be allowed to get abortions before they know they are pregnant (Alabama’s Clyde Chambliss) or try to legislate the medically impossible removal of ectopic pregnancy and reimplantation into the uterus (Ohio’s John Becker) — are the stuff of unimaginably gothic horror. Ever since Roe was decided in 1973, conservatives have been laboring to roll back abortion access, with absolutely zero knowlege of or interest in how reproduction works. And all the while, those who have been trying to sound the alarm have been shooed off as silly hysterics. Vote, as they say, as if your life depended on it, because it does, but more importantly: other people’s lives depend on it. And between voting, consider where to aim your anger in ways that will influence election outcomes: educate yourself about local races and policy proposals, as well as the history of the reproductive rights and reproductive-justice movements. Get engaged not just on a presidential level — please God, not just at a presidential level — but with the fights for state legislative power, in congressional and senate elections, all of which shape abortion policy and the judiciary, and the voting rights on which every other kind of freedom hinges. Knock doors, register voters, give to and volunteer with the organizations that are working to fight voter suppression and redistricting and expand the electorate; as well as to those recruiting and training progressive candidates, especially women and women of color, especially young and first-time candidates, to run for elected office. You can also protest, go to rallies. Join a local political group where your rage will likely be shared with others. Above all, do not let defeat or despair take you, and do not let anyone tell you that your anger is misplaced or silly or in vain, or that it is anything other than urgent and motivating. It may be terrifying — it is terrifying. But this — the fury and the fight it must fuel — is going to last the rest of our lives and we must get comfortable using our rage as central to the work ahead. READ MORE Contribute to RSN Update My Monthly Donation