Choice, voice, action

Jun 26

Painting detail,”Ocean Beach” by Peter Whitehead

The Pride revelers were just dispersing when we drove into the city for a friend’s art show. It was a beautiful day in San Francisco. The Pink Triangle was winking from the hills of Twin Pinks and the the sidewalks were full of smiling faces, some sporting rainbow paint. What a relief to see such joy on display. What a relief to live somewhere were a variety of lifestyles, of freedom to choose was encouraged not oppressed. What a relief to live in a state whose governor immediately made it “a safe haven for women across the nation.”

I was so angry and sad and stunned when the news for the Supreme Court decision to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that gave women the right to choose abortion was announced. My phone immediately started buzzing with texts from women friends:

“Where is the march?”
“This is hell”
“😭”.

I had recording session on Friday — Bay Station was tracking a handful of new tunes — which kept me occupied all day, but also meant I missed the marches that sprung up locally and across the nation. At least I’m using my voice, I thought.

It helped that least one of the songs can be qualified as a protest/activist song.

Take away the bullets, defuse every bomb /Restore justice, right every wrong — from ‘Shapeshifter,’ Bay Station

Voice matters and now is the time to use it, whether you live in a state where women still have their rights, whether you reach 10 people or 10 million. Silence only helps the oppressors.

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." — Martin Luther King Jr.

Despite a full day of tracking and singing, I only felt more sad afterward, reading about children being forced to give birth, about clinics in other states having to call women to say their appointments were cancelled. How some women started crying, how others didn’t understand, how their futures were now being dictated by a corrupted judicial process.

What Do You Need to Know About the End of Roe v. Wade?

If you think this ruling doesn’t effect you — whether you identify as a man or women, whether you have daughters or not, whether you are long past child-bearing age — you are woefully mistaken. Please don’t sleep on this.