How are all of these new abortion bans going to affect sex and dating over the next several decades?
Hi, I’m Dr. Liz and welcome to a video on my channel that’s about a really important issue right now. I’m recording this video on May 28, 2019 and as I record this, there are several states that have recently instituted new laws that would effectively ban abortion. Alabama has outright banned abortion completely with sentences of up 99 years for anyone performing or did an abortion. Georgia has banned abortions after six weeks. There is Ohio getting in on the fun, Texas jumping into it. State after state after state is passing laws to regulate what people with uteruses do with their bodies.
The thing is, these laws aren’t about children. They are not about protecting kids. They are not about protecting life. They are about reinforcing systems that oppress those who are not cis white man.
In reality, when abortion was legal before, rich white folks were still able to get abortions. When abortion is illegal, the people who suffered the most are those who don’t have money, are those who are black and brown people, are those who are poor, are those who are already struggling, those who were in abusive situations, those who can’t talk to the people around them about why they need an abortion.
People are going to die. Full adult humans are going to die because of these laws. And a lot of people I see on the internet say, “Well, but about those babies? Don’t they have lives too?” The thing is, if I were to die today and I had not already registered myself as an organ donor and I hadn’t communicated in my will or to the people who would have the say for my body when I died that I wanted to be an organ donor, no one could take my organs even if they were perfectly healthy, even if it would save countless lives. If I had a rare blood type, people can’t force me to give up my blood even if I’m dead.
When we regulate abortion in this way, we regulate people with uteruses to have less rights than corpses do. When someone becomes pregnant, the comp of cells growing inside of their body relies on them for everything. It relies on them for air, for nutrients, for support, for everything. And pregnancy is not a benign condition. A lot of people have this misconception that pregnancy doesn’t hurt the person who is pregnant, but it does. It causes huge health complications. People die giving birth to children particularly black women.
Pregnancy is harmful. It affects your ability to get or keep a job, to stay in school. It affects your ability to eat and get enough food. It affects your energy levels. It affects your brain and your comprehension. It’s hugely taxing on a body. It’s not easy.
And when we tell people that their body has to agree to be hijacked for 9 months because of a potential being that would be hurt if they decided not to have that hijacking happen, we create a system that says that some people get to tell other people what to do with their bodies. There are no laws out there that tell people with penises what they can or can’t do with their bodies except for us that affects other fully formed adult humans. We only create this legislation for people who have uteruses.
And for those of you who are wondering why I’m saying people with uteruses rather than women, I’m gender queer. I have mixed feelings about the label of woman for me. Sometimes it feels good and sometimes it doesn’t. But I have a uterus. I am not necessarily always included when people talk about the women who will be affected by these laws.
Trans men can get pregnant. People who are into sex can get pregnant. It is not just women who can get pregnant.
And in reality, we are creating a system that is going to harm especially people who are racial minorities and people who are trans and non-binary because these laws that are outlawing abortion create a system in which if you go to the hospital for a miscarriage, you can be questioned to make sure that it was actually a miscarriage not an abortion. And who do you think they are going to view as suspicious? The rich white lady with a nice family or the black woman who lives alone, who doesn’t have a partner? Who do you think they are going to view as suspicious? The person who has lots of money or the person who is poor, the person who doesn’t have fancy language to explain what’s going on with them?
I am scared for what is happening in this country. I am so lucky that I have access to good healthcare because I’m a veteran that the ID that’s inside of me that I need to switch out in about 5 months for a new one will last for at least another 5 years after that. There are so many people who are not that lucky. There are so many people who cannot get access to birth control that works for them. There are so many people for whom access to contraceptives is impossible or really challenging. And when we create these laws, we are saying that for them sex is damnation, that you deserve to suffer for a minimum of 9 months for choosing to have sex ever.
We don’t live in a country that makes it easy for people who have kids. We don’t live in a country where adoption is easy. Even if you decide to let your baby go for adoption, you still have to pay all of your medical costs. You are still paying a ton of money and dealing with the physical ramifications on your body.
Not everyone can access these other options. And the thing is, some of these states are going so far as to make anyone counseling someone about how to get an abortion or providing monetary support or transportation to an abortion, accessories to murder. Those of us who have uteruses, I’ll again, don’t have the same rights as a corpse right now.
And when I think about dating in this kind of a time, it makes me want to stay as far away from anyone who has sperm as I possibly can because sperm is the necessary component of a pregnancy. All of those folks who are pregnant, all of those folks who we are deciding deserve to sacrifice their bodies for a potential that doesn’t even exist yet. They wouldn’t be pregnant if it wasn’t someone whose sperm made them so.
We don’t police sperm. We don’t police people who ejaculate. We don’t tell them that their ejaculations make them accessories to murder. We only police the people who want to get their bodies back.
And the reality is these laws are all just building up a challenge to go back to the Supreme Court so that we can go back to a time where anyone who has the ability to get pregnant has to spend so much of their time and energy avoiding pregnancy.
Ever since I started having sex at 17, every time I have sex with someone who has sperm, I have to worry about whether it’s going to make me pregnant and what would happen if I got pregnant and who could I have taken me to get an abortion, who would I trust enough to tell it, would I have the money to be able to afford an abortion, if not, who could I get to help me with the money? It is a huge mental load that we carry when you have a uterus.
And it’s a clear sign that so many folks in this country don’t give a shit about the lives of those people that have the uteruses. They care about the potential life inside because maybe it could be a guy, right? Maybe that will come out a man. Maybe that will be a cisgender straight man.
But the person with the uterus, their life doesn’t matter nearly as much. And I think this is going to have big ramifications for how sex and dating look because I can’t imagine a world where abortion isn’t an option, where people feel like they can still find sexual freedom and sexual empowerment. We are living in a culture that wants to beat us all down, that wants to prove to us how little those of us with uterine deserves equality and freedom.
And the reason that they want us to have all those babies is that it will keep us down. You can’t continue fighting for equality if you’re feeding a bunch of kids. You can’t continue talking out against the oppression and racism if you have to stay pregnant and you can barely afford the food that you need to survive.
It’s a scary time right now. And if you are someone who doesn’t have a uterus, you need to start doing the work of reaching out to those around you who do have them and supporting those people. You need to do the work of figuring out how to challenge these laws and support the organizations that are working against them.
In the show notes, I’ll have links to a bunch of those groups in different states that are working to keep abortion legal and safe and easy to access for everybody. And I will also have links to articles that I found that talk eloquently about what is happening right now and why we need to fix it.
But overall, I just hope that most of you can take away from this that even these laws happening in places that you don’t live are affecting the people around you because every one of those laws reminds me that I’m not a full pledge human in this country even if I don’t live in any one of those states.
Thanks so much for joining. I know this is a tough topic. It’s hard. It brings up a lot of feelings in me. I’m sure it brings up a lot of feelings in all of you.
In the comments for this video, I’m not going to get into a debate about whether abortion should be legal. I’m just not. If you want to talk about your reasons that abortion should not be legal, take them somewhere else. I’ll be deleting all comments to that effect.
In addition, if you engage in any kind of stuff in these comments that I think is going to be harmful for the folks who are watching this who need it, I’m going to delete your comment. I don’t generally police my comments really heavily here in YouTube but this one, I’m going to.
Thank you so much for joining me. If you appreciate this kind of work, the kind of sex education that can actually help us reduce the rate of abortions, feel free to click on over to my Patreon. I’m accepting patrons right now to help fund these videos to make sex education as accessible and free as I possibly can.
Thank you all for your time. I’ll see you next time.
