Thoughts On “Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization”

Trigger Warning: Abortion, Foster Care, Child Abuse, Detailed Medical Discussion

I feel strangely hesitant in writing this; my mind feels tumultuous and colors of thought are swirling by too fast to fully grasp. I think many people in the United States are feeling similarly chaotic, confused, upset, etc. Today, the Supreme Court overturned “Roe v Wade”, undoing the Federal right to terminate a pregnancy (Medical Abortion). Laws on this matter are now up to individual states, many of which have had “Trigger Laws” in place to ban Medical Abortion should such a Decision occur. This decision brings up many concerns for many people, in a wide variety of areas. I am an Advocate for a community that faces many issues involving lack of Bodily Autonomy, a survivor of the Foster Care System many children that will be born from these new laws will end up in, and someone who has experienced Infertility (and thus a lack of reproductive choice). I write this as more of a diary entry than Theory, but I had to get my thoughts out…

Justice Alito wrote in the majority opinion, “‘That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’ and ’implicit in the concept of ordered liberty,’”(As Quoted In CNBC) As a Psychosis Advocate, the overturning of the implied Right to Privacy provision is chilling. As Psychotic people, we experience invasions of our Bodily Autonomy frequently, such as: forced medication, involuntary hospitalizations, & restraints. These are often perfectly legal, applied with a simple doctors order or the permission of court that has never even seen the patient. Removing the right to Medical Abortion allows huge intrusions of the State onto people’s medical care and allows the State invasive permission to control medical procedures. Gynecology is not Psychiatry, but Legal Precedent is a very powerful thing; it’s not a Slippery Slope, it’s how the Law actually works! As someone who wants to work for reforms in Psychiatry, I fear for the Precedent today’s Ruling and forthcoming might have/will create. It’s no guarantee, but it makes me very nervous & unhappy. I fear that this will be used to further marginalize and control already heavily marginalized people’s body’s beyond the immediately obvious—and the immediately obvious is bad enough.

I am a Survivor of the Foster Care System. I was involved with Family Services from ages 14-15, because of my mother’s Hoarding Disorder. I spent 6 months living with my abusive Grandmother, and 5 months living with various Foster Families, 2 long-term, 1 respite. The 1st family was abusive, but I had a really good relationship with the 2nd one and the respite family. The Foster Care System is corrupt, abusive, carceral, and overburdened—and I live in one of the richest areas of the USA. My bad foster mother was starving me and forcing me to eat food I was allergic/intolerant to, and none of the Social Workers noticed anything was wrong for three months! I was begging the Social Workers to remove me from my Grandmother, but they didn’t believe me something was wrong until I had bruises to show them. Yes there are good Foster Parents and Social Workers that Care—I’ve met them. But putting a child in Foster Care is basically sentencing them abuse, general neglect, and medical neglect. I feel like a state having Trigger Laws in place, but having nothing to expand funding in a massive scale to their Social Services is inhumane. You are just going to end up with more people in poverty, Traumatized children, and Traumatized parents. IT’s been almost 10 years exactly since I left Foster Care, and there are still demons from that time that haunt me.

I am infertile. At first I thought it was from my medication, but Schizophrenic people are also prone to Infertility naturally, and in my case it might be a mix of the factors. It’s a little unclear. I have an earlier essay where I go over the hormonal issues in Schizophrenia here. Not being able to conceive, I am in some ways detached from the Roe v Wade issue, but in others, I am not. As an infertile woman, know what it is like to have no reproductive choice. I lost my choice at a very young age. As a Schizophrenic woman, Adoption (which I dreamed of when I was in High School), is also not an option. I have seen some infertile women become very Pro-Birth, and I use that terminology because the focus of their discussion is on how grateful the other women/Childfree women should be because they are able to get pregnant, not on their actual desires or needs. It’s a little Handmaid-esque. Personally, losing all reproductive choice at such a young age made me believe in greater leniency for Medical Abortion, because I realized how terrible not having a choice was. For me, a big part of the upset was not knowing exactly why my body was behaving this way, and not having the ability to properly treat it—my hormones are all messed up, and the only hormone therapy available is in the form of Birth Control! I could somewhat normalize my hormones, but the organ’s function couldn’t be returned. I am still unable to conceive should I want to, or else risk developing reproductive cancer! I developed a great sense of sympathy & solidarity with fertile women, especially women with abnormal pregnancies. The sense of loss of control over my Reproductive System was a new horror on my ~Disability Journey~.

I want to say “God Save Us”, as so much trouble hits this country. But I don’t want to give the impression that we should just wait for things to get better on their own. We must actively work to improve our own lives and communities, and not hope a deus ex machina event(s) comes and makes it all better.