There are lots of reasons why dating in your 60s is hard – wrinkles, scars, bad breath, missing teeth, surprise farting, family issues, and the biggest one – different politics.
Politico announced yesterday that the Supreme Court is gearing up to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case in 1973 regarding a woman's right to an abortion.
I turned 18 in 1973. Before that, abortion was legal in some states and illegal in others. A 9th grade friend had to fly to New York to have her abortion. She told her parents she was babysitting all weekend. Her older boyfriend paid for the trip and procedure.
In college, girls dropped out to raise a baby and others had abortions so they could finish their degrees. After college, a friend of mine had to have an abortion after the condom broke. She had no intention of marrying that guy, and she wasn't ready to be a single mom.
Last night the news was all about Roe v. Wade, so it naturally spilled over into a text session with a guy I have gone on exactly two dates with, although the second date was 8 hours long. I had a feeling he was my polar opposite, politically speaking, and the text session confirmed it. He was still sending lengthy texts after I'd tucked myself into bed.
This morning I answered his texts. He said Roe v Wade was about the U.S. government spending too much money funding Planned Parenthood. I said Roe v. Wade is about controlling women and what they can and can't do with their bodies.
He called me bitter. Since I'm a morning perons, I didn't lose my cool. I stuck to the facts. He asked why did I care? I was too old to get pregnant.
Uh, it's called paying if forward, for my daughters and my future granddaughters.
He went on and on about irresponsible people having sex and how he has to pay taxes to clean up the messes (no pun intended – well, maybe).
I pointed out that only women are held responsible for the unwanted babies, never the men.
And so on and so forth.
It's exhausting, trying to reason with someone whose mind is made up and there's no changing it, someone who isn't following the grand scheme of things being orchestrated by right wing conservatives who believe it's their God-given duty to get the country back on track.
What about the separation of church and state? How can we have laws that fly in the face of that? Ok, so you don't believe in abortion. Then don't have one. But it's not your right to prevent any woman from having one ever.
I didn't even know I was pregnant at six weeks, which is the cut-off for the new heartbeat law in Texas.
Other states are passing laws restricting abortion, even if the woman has been raped. The rapist gets off the hook, and the woman is sentenced to nine months of an unplanned preganancy to give birth to an unplanned baby where the father has perpetrated a violent crime against her.
I could go on and on. Let's just say that it's better to find out now after only two dates, than down the road. He's not the first guy that I asked, "How would your life have been different if you had been born female?"
One guy said two seconds later it would have been exactly the same.
Think about it. Ask a female friend to expound upon that idea. Unless you've been sexually harassed, raped, or denied a job or schooling because you are female, you have no idea.
It's not being bitter; it's having been in those shoes for over sixty years.
No comments:
Post a Comment