My mother’s heart has been shaken lately. My woman’s heart too. Especially me who believed that we were moving forward, always more serene, confident, autonomous… Now our neighbors to the south remind me that this is not the case. Worse, and I’m hardly exaggerating, that God would have control over our bodies.
This recent decision to restrict the right to abortion in the United States is a stab at women around the world.
I realize today that history depends on few things, that achievements can be wiped out in a few amendments. That moving forward in time may mean going backwards.
Let us remember that the United States came within a hair’s breadth of electing its first president following the election of the first black president, Barack Obama. At that time the United States was perceived throughout the world as a country with progressive, humanist values. The election of Trump will have led them to another sad fate.
Abortion, the ultimate right
The right to abortion as I learned in my seminars at university is undoubtedly the most important feminist fight. Certainly there is the right to vote, pay equity, autonomy, but abortion is the ultimate right for women to choose their bodies.
Getting pregnant is not just a question of fertilization and pregnancy. He is a little human being who will have to be cherished for a lifetime. It’s a new way of life that not all women can or want to embrace.
Worse, it is not because we prohibit abortions that they will stop. According to the World Health Organization, 25 million unsafe abortions are performed each year worldwide, resulting in 39,000 deaths of women and millions of hospitalizations.
“Access to safe abortions saves lives” pleads the director general of the WHO and he is right.
Resuming the feminist struggle
Dear Florence, you my daughter whom I love, I promise you that Mom will now fight at all times to leave you a world where you will be free and fulfilled…
