On A Personal Note

In second grade, I had to use the restroom during the Iowa Basics exam. My teacher wouldn’t let me go, even though I asked her several times. The expected happened, and I peed in my chair. I remember a lot of things about that day, yet I also remember my Dad being quite upset with the teacher when I told him what had happened. As a biology professor, he knew that it was not healthy to try and ‘hold it,’ let alone the fact that she had disrespected my assertion of a bodily need. He made it very clear to me that day that I was in charge of my body, and in the future; if such a thing were to happen again, I was to feel free to ignore her saying, ‘no’.

His support that day meant the world to me. Even as a young child, I knew that by his words, he had my back with regards to my body being mine, and I was in charge.

Later in my life, he would assert this lesson in other ways. If I were at a doctor’s appointment, for example, he would tell me to ask what my vitals were, if they didn’t readily share that information. He would say, “this is about you, and you have every right to have any information pertaining to your body.” Seems a small thing, really, yet his point was that since I had stewardship of this body, it behooved me to have all the information required to make informed decisions.

Yesterday’s ruling to abolish Roe v. Wade was a punch to the gut. At 58 I no longer am in danger of having an unwanted pregnancy, yet I was once in that situation. In 1993, I had an abortion of an unexpected and unwanted pregnancy. It doesn’t really matter what my situation was at the time, yet what does matter is that I was in charge of what did or did not happen to my body…not someone else. It was a difficult and challenging time in my life and I was lucky to have the support of family, including my father, who saw this as MY decision. I simply cannot fathom how much more difficult that time would have been if I had to seek out services in a different state, or potentially services deemed as illegal.

These are disturbing and unsettling times. Our efforts and energies could be better directed at issues such as climate change, gun control, improving our health system…just to name a few, yet a small minority of people want to exert power and control over others in order to feel…what??? Better about themselves? Righteous? What gives anyone the right to decide something that is not their decision to make?

It is My body, and My choice.