US House hates people with uteruses; Nyx dusts off soapbox

If you follow the feminist blogosphere at all, you've probably heard about the US House of Representatives' various and sundry attempts to make womens' lives more difficult. Most recently, they passed a motion to cut funding for Planned Parenthood, in a move that made my blood boil. Other recent legislative misogyny includes South Dakota trying to establish fetal personhood and thus set precedent to make murder of abortion providers "self defense," the so-called "Protect Life Act" which will allow doctors to refuse to save the lives of pregnant women, and the HR3 bill redefining rape, among other things.

Most of the time, I'm too busy dealing with the faulty wiring in my brain to have much energy for advocacy. This blog is my way of participating, though mainly on the front of mental illness, because I firmly believe that the personal is political and vice versa.

This is personal. This is my country telling me that I have no right to bodily autonomy. This is my country telling me that my health does not matter. This is my country telling me that I am nothing but an incubator, and my life means nothing. This is my country trying to make it legal to let me die while surrounded by medical personnel. This is my country saying that being drugged, coerced, or unconscious means anyone has the right to my body. This is my country saying I am a disposable object. This is my country telling me that because I have a uterus, I am hated. And this, too, is my country saying all those things about family and friends and lovers, and it is not acceptable.

I refuse. I refuse to be told that I don't deserve the right to health care, to my own decisions, to protection under the law. I deserve those things, because I am a person.

Please, if you can, take action. Call or write to your Congresspeople. Sign Planned Parenthood's petition. Spread the word.