I woke up this morning with less rights than I had when I was born over 43 years ago.
Under the cover of night, our elected Indiana state leaders, consisting of a GOP majority, pushed the final stages of a bill that left a corpse with more bodily autonomy than a person with a uterus. The governor shutting off his phones from the public as he signed into law.
They rushed this through all so very quickly, crushing down all the voices of opposition. Jumping over the hurdles placed by the Democratic leaders. Cutting down oral public testimony down to a fourth of those who signed up to speak. Remained quiet to the public on what they were introducing. Refused to answer the public’s questions. Failed to respond to constituent’s calls. They ignored their own polls that reported 63% of Hoosiers did not want an abortion ban.
We yelled. We chanted. We sang. We testified our nightmarish stories. We shared the parts of us that hurt the most. We cried. We comforted. We called. We wrote. We had over 700 medical professionals join us. We had over 500 businesses express concern over the effects on the economy. We had Gen Con stand up from their tables and command their audience.
But at the end of the day, none of it mattered to the Republican “leaders”. They rushed this bill through knowing that their only chance to get this through would be to ensure it was finished, no matter how poorly, before their adjournment date on August 14th. They knew when the legislative session opened again, things could look dramatically different for them. So they turned their back on their constituents and shook their derrieres at us in a declaration of how unaccountable they feel. Then as they quoted verses from Bible, using their belief as a shield, they stripped away the rights of Hoosiers to decide how their own uterus will be used. These “leaders” placed themselves as the only people in our state who can determine how to use a uterus. Their beliefs weighing more than the person and all the physician’s knowledge. Anyone who has a uterus has officially been deemed too naïve to hold responsibility of our own body parts. We have less rights than a corpse. We hold the same level of respect from these leaders as akin to cattle. All done by leaders who the majority of them have never had their own uterus. Perhaps that was why they so badly wanted to control them? And they themselves will never be in a position of being mandated on how they must use their own damn organs.
In their minds, they must feel pretty powerful this morning now having control of every uterus in the state. The control to tell a child that they did not declare they were pregnant from a rape soon enough and they must now allow that fetus growing in their body, that was placed there without their consent, to grow into a baby that will endanger their life as they try to deliver into this world. Deliver in a state with one of the worst maternal mortality rates. They must feel really good knowing that they can still aid their mistresses in getting an abortion and hold the ability to stop others from having that access. They twisted all those Bible verses to make themselves feel so righteous in this endeavor. They made themselves believe they are heroes. Oh the sweet (wet) dream to be living in the 50’s again.
What they seem to have massively forgotten was that our state nor our country is a theocracy. These leaders can have their faith all day long and that is fine, but they were not elected to be spiritual leaders who force such beliefs onto others. They were elected to represent Hoosiers and their very own actions proved they failed at this.
They even voted down an amendment that would have let Hoosiers decide through votes if this should be a law, because they knew it wasn’t supported.
I want to thank them for showing us their true colors. Thank those that did try and speak out of both sides of their mouths for going back in and voting down amendments that then showed everyone they were liars. I thank them for giving us this public record, because now they can’t hide behind pretty words.
Now here is how we fight back. We take this knowledge. We take this anger fueled at being made cattle. We take it all to the polls with us in November. We VOTE out EVERY single one of them who voted YES to SB1. They failed to represent Hoosiers as they took an oath to do and they need to be removed. We vote in blue leaders to replace them. Vote for leaders who have been working to protect our rights. We flock to the polls in numbers that no matter how our state was gerrymandered, it still slides in our favor.
We, the 63% of us who didn’t want this law, vote to take back our VOICE!!!!
We remove those set on controlling us through their religion!
We take back our state!
We do not go gentle into this good night, Hoosiers will ROAR!!!!
