A TSC Special Literary Response to Roe vs Wade
Edited by Kevin R. Pennington, Abhimanyu Kumar, Shaiq Ali, Zeenat Khan, Bishweshwar Das
10. Poetry | Marc Olmsted
Artwork | Cynthia Yatchman
Editorial: On Abortion in America | Kevin R. Pennington
_(52188367034).jpg) |
| Source: Wikimedia Commons |
Abortion
is not an easy topic to talk or write about. Passionate opinions rage on both
sides of the issue. On one side are the predominantly white male lawmakers and
the conservative voters who elected them and on the other side are the women
whose healthcare and reproductive freedoms are being ripped away. For decades,
Roe vs. Wade gave women the federal right to an abortion in the United States.
Many states like Texas passed extremely restrictive laws, but they could not
ban abortions entirely. In February 2022, the unthinkable happened. The United
States Supreme Court overturned the longstanding Roe vs. Wade ruling, which
provided for women's reproductive freedom and the federal right to an abortion.
The
Roe vs. Wade precedent gave women across the nation the right to make informed
medical decisions about their own bodies, including the right to end an
unwanted pregnancy. However, in a post-Roe America, instead of women having a
single federal framework for abortion issues, each state may regulate women’s
reproductive rights individually. While it sounds good on paper for each state
to make their own abortion laws, what overturning Roe vs. Wade has done is open
a deluge of extremely restrictive abortion laws in conservative states like
Texas, Oklahoma, and Florida. These laws are so restrictive that the window of
time when an abortion can legally happen is often over before the woman is
aware that she is pregnant. Other states passed Heartbeat laws that require
physicians to detect if there is a fetal heartbeat before performing an
abortion.
The
nation’s most stringent abortion laws are in Texas. There are currently no
legal abortions allowed in Texas. The state’s abortion law is designed for zero
tolerance and gives no exemptions for rape or incest victims. Texas Governor
Greg Abbott, the political figure who spearheaded Texas’s abortion law, states
that women who are raped can use the Plan B pill, which is a medication
designed to prevent a pregnancy during a tiny and specific window of time. He
also suggested that Texas law enforcement will prevent rapes from occurring in
the first place, however, the data does not support Abbot’s aspirations for
Texas law enforcement. Instead, Texas is one of the states with the most rape
complaints.
Drugs
like mifepristone, an FDA approved abortion medication, are currently the
target of GOP politicians who seek to leverage legislation against all abortion
methods. In April 2023, the Supreme Court ruled mifepristone will remain widely
available and blocked a lower court’s ruling to restrict or ban the drug,
however, they also sent the case back to the lower court, even though it is
very likely to be sent back to the Supreme Court.
In
various conservative states, abortion is so weaponized that doctors are afraid
of what will happen to them if they perform abortion procedures. Many of these
laws hold physicians responsible, with jail sentences for conducting the
procedure. This causes most doctors to resist performing necessary abortions.
There are examples of women not receiving care, even in the narrow cases that
an exemption permits, because the hospital staff were unsure how to legally
proceed with the operation. Often, the decision for abortion is not decided by
medical providers who take the mother’s health into account, but by lawyers who
lean toward legal safety for the doctor instead of the medical safety of the
patient needing the procedure.
CNN reported on this abortion issue in an article¹ dated April 25, 2023. The CNN article details problems in Oklahoma where contradictory laws filled with non-medical terminology make it impossible for hospitals to perform abortions, even when it should be allowed due to an exemption. The CNN article describes a study where researchers called hospitals acting as prospective patients and asked the hospitals what the abortion policies were. The researchers got different answers from the various hospitals. The CNN article states:
In the
state of Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis, who has announced a run for President,
recently signed a law banning abortions after 6 weeks instead of the state’s
previous 15-week ban. However, the 6-week ban was struck down by the Florida
Supreme Court.
In the
direct aftermath of Roe vs. Wade ruling, the editors of the Sunflower
Collective curated a literary response to the Supreme Court’s decision with
plans to release an anthology. The anthology is still moving forward, however,
due to the overwhelming importance of these poems at this particular juncture
in time, we made an editorial decision to release them on the Sunflower
Collective blog. The collection of poems, mostly written by women, including
Suzi Kaplan Olmsted, Lynne Bronstein, and Amy Garner, as well as other
important poets, raise their voices against the patriarchal hegemony that
treats women as a lesser sex and regulates their reproductive rights.
Kevin
R. Pennington
Co-Editor
of the Sunflower Collective
July 4, 2023
¹https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/25/health/emergency-abortion-confusion-okahoma/index.html
Poetry | Suzi Kaplan Olmsted
 |
| Blood Fall by Peter Rejcek (Source: wiki commons) |
Young enough to see the
ice caps melt
I wish it was all a metaphor
That I was a symbolic poet
What I remember most clearly about my
abortion
Is getting the money from Social Services
I didn't have the cash or income at the
time
I wouldn't ask my parents
And I'm wasn't the sort to depend on a
man
Or ask for help
Even if I loved him
He was a useless, unreliable piece of
shit
Who made my pussy clench
He smelled fantastic of amber, musk,
sandalwood and manly welding sweat
I knew he’d break my heart, and I told
him he would on our second date
He agreed
He tore it out with his teeth, repeatedly
The worst kind of dilation and curettage
But I was young enough at the abortion
clinic
That 10 milligrams of Valium made me a
happy, giddy patient
The pitchers of margaritas afterward
On the back patio of my favorite Castro
restaurant
Kept any feelings at bay
No regrets here, though
Not about the abortion
I wonder what the idiotic people
celebrating the fall of Roe v. Wade are really thinking, though
I'm back to wondering when the mother
ship is coming
My abortion would be in its 30’s now
Young enough to see the ice caps melt
Watch billions die from sea rise, heat,
fire, floods, hurricanes, drought and famine
Civilizations fall, pestilence prevail,
mass extinction of countless species
Dystopian reality pending, while we argue
I'm less concerned about when life starts
I'm thinking
Poetry | Christian Garduno
 |
| Guernica by Pablo Picasso (source: wiki commons) |
They Said It Couldn’t
Happen Here
They said it couldn’t happen here
they were always saying that
don’t look now but the nails are being
driven in
in one hand is the Holy Bible and in the
other is Mein Kampf
They’re letting you know
Father knows best
they’re telling you to dig your own hole
if you know what’s best
I wasn’t there when it happened
but I saw the livestream when I got home
from work
they took down the stars and stripes from
atop the White House
and raised up the Swastika
They are politely letting you know
that Father knows best
and if you don’t like it, Junior
you’re welcome to leave with the rest
Blood oaths are taking place on 5th
Avenue
the faithful are slavishly drooling on
one another
Poetry | Lynn White
 |
| Ghoulish Apparitions (source: wiki commons) |
Birth Or Death
Death begins at birth
for pro-lifers.
The birth day
is
when
interest
is lost
lost
in those post foetal
post natal
moments
which move us
crying
into hours
smiling
into days
crawling
into months
running
into years
walking
into decades
slowing
toward
our death day.
They’ve long
lost interest
these pro-lifers.
They say that life
must be lived
according to
the law of God
as it is written
and dispatched
to them
in nightmares
and dreams.
Only break it
and
they’re back
with interest
and concern
those pro-deathers.
Ghouls
Is it ghoulish
to think
that life
is more
than a small collection of cells
in a uterus.
Is it ghoulish
to think
that
the life of the mother
and the spillage
of her blood
count for less
than the small collection of cells
in her uterus
that are unable to bleed.
Is it ghoulish
to think
that infant life
needs love
as it grows
and support networks
and things that cost
society
dear
through life
if it does not supply them.
Is it ghoulish
to ask
how
the highest court
in the land
was taken over
Poetry | Carol Alena Aronoff
 |
| Searching the Womb by Inder Salim |
Estranged Fruit
Forced birth to increase
domestic supply of infants
for adoption. Not oil, not
chickens– children. Ty
Is birth control next
to be sacrificed on the altar
of false piety– our bodies
offered up to the state?
Anger–too small a word to
contain my feelings of betrayal,
despair at the sufferings, deaths
to come, at memories triggered:
Of being told to steal a diaphragm off
the doctor’s desk because he couldn’t
prescribe contraceptives in sixties’
Boston even to a married woman.
Of being molested by a Harley Street
physician as I lay on the table awaiting
an abortion, of being told he was doing
sex research as I must be a loose woman.
After years of struggle, lost and damaged
lives, are we once again commodities
to be exploited, trees forced to bear
fruit,
to be plucked and plundered, driven
Poetry | Lynne Bronstein
.jpg) |
| Slave Shackles (source: wiki commons) |
Damn Your Shackles
49 years
During which I was a full human being
And now, it’s over.
When freedom was given us, I was young.
Now I am not in need of the choice.
But if my sisters are not free
Then I am not free.
You may try to throw
A new chain over me.
If I were you, I’d take heed
Of the power of the wrath
An old woman can wield.
There are a thousand ways I know
How to bend the steel.
Your laws can’t touch my body
Or hold down my mind.
Sorry. I learned a lot
During the years I was free.
Your bigotry-forged shackles
Poetry | Amy Garner
 |
| Searching the Womb by Inder Salim |
What Faith in Mankind?
I peer into our past and see our demons’
gleeful grins, snapping the chains that drive our future forward.
Don’t like that you can’t own her when
your loins go all aquiver?
Cover her.
Anonymize her.
In the streets of her own village.
No woman was ever safe.
Don’t like that your wife won’t share her
wealth?
Insane asylum.
Lobotomize her.
In a five-star luxury hotel room.
No woman was ever safe.
Don’t like how your boss spoke to you
today, made you feel small?
Scapegoat.
Savage her.
In her own home, in her own bed.
No woman was ever safe.
Want to be wealthy without all the work,
and need fresh labor?
Rape her.
Impregnate her.
In the rude hut feigning shelter.
No woman was ever safe.
Don’t like that she owned land and was a
respected healer?
Accuse her.
Hang her.
Confiscate her lands and goods.
No woman was ever safe.
Don’t like her choosing her own lover
with her own heart, mind and body?
Hide her.
Drown her.
Never let her see the light of day.
No woman was ever safe.
Wanted the dowry but not the marriage
with which it came?
Burn her.
Eliminate her.
Hide the money and slither away with a
sleazy smile.
No woman was ever safe.
Feeling low, unappreciated, with a need
for power to make yourself feel on top?
Attack her.
Force her.
Feel no shame, merely gloat with your
atta-boys.
No woman was ever safe.
You want someone to be beneath you, less
than you, worthy of your sentence and your spittle?
Outlaw her.
Imprison her.
Make her body your property.
No woman was ever safe.
The enlightenment is over, and the chink
of women’s chains is only one of many links being forged.
Poetry | M.B. Elliott
 |
| Searching the womb by Inder Salim |
She Sees
Once you meet her,
The cretens that you worship, Will be seen,
for who they are;
Withered and useless thieves, Left to steal
The light from stars.
Justice comes, Wrapped in truth; It’s a coat,
They cannot break. Their useless talk, and scattered stock, Know only
How to hate.
They take your good
intentions,
And tax them,
with their laws,
Intending to imprison,
Every woman, for their cause.
The blood of menses,
Scares them,
Something they must protect,
They want to hold us down,
Their boots,
Laid out across our neck.
Remove it,
Stated Ginsburg,
She was counted,
In this fight,
Bathed in freedom’s glory, Not the fear,
Made by the right.
If you take away
Our freedoms,
We’ll remove you
From your throne,
When you scoff
at the wombs,
that made you mortal? Then you’re not
Fully grown.
Poetry | Lorrain Caputo
 |
| Hope II by Gustav Klimt (source: Wiki Commons) |
I AM A MOTHER
—for our mothers & our mothers’
mothers & their mothers & theirs . . .
I am a girl,
seventeen, a high-school force-out
I am now a wife
I will be a mother
Am I African-American
or Native American?
Am I Latina
or Appalachian?
Am I native-born
or immigrant?
Does it matter?
We are migrants to
the city, in search of work
Here we have no
family—only your cousin once-removed
I scrub rich people’s
floors, my knees roughened & reddened
my womb heavy again
I fall & lose
those twins
&you want to know
Am I
or am I?
Am I
or am I?
Am I
or am I?
Does it matter?
I am a mother of one
two & now three
There is no birth
control I can use
There is no money for
the doctors who will tell me
I am a wife
I am a wife . . .
. . . of a drinking
man
Am I
or am I?
Am I
or am I?
Am I
or am I?
Does it matter?
I work as a check-out
clerk
I am a wife—unhappy
I am a lover—of a
married man
I am pregnant—again
I am a wife—abandoned
four kids, no
education, no support
I am a mother
There’s the rent to
pay, a house to heat in these cold winters
There’s four kids to
feed what little I can
The littlest faints
from hunger in her classroom
My son is ill
There’s no money—
my lover the marries
man gives what little he can
There’s no birth
control I can take
There’s no money for
the doctors who will tell me
WHAT?
I am an abandoned
wife
I am the lover
of—& yes, he beats me
I am pregnant again
I have four kids
I work two jobs,
still clerking with a forced smile
&scraping grease
from fast food grills
I have no choice
& I am pregnant
again
. . . Again I visit .
. .
I am pregnant yet
again
. . . that back alley
. . .
It’s almost Easter
. . . I help another
woman . . .
The snow is heavy on
the ground
. . . who is pregnant
again . . .
The pussy willow buds
are soft
. . . to that alley .
. .
My girls will have patent
leather Mary Janes
&my son Thom
McAns
&they will have
new dresses, a new vest & pants
&this year real
baskets with chocolate bunnies
&marshmallow eggs
nested in cellophane grass
Am I
or am I?
Am I
or am I?
Am I
or am I?
Does it matter?
I am tired, I am
stressed—I beat my kids
I am scared—I drink
I am so
frightened—please don’t let them ever find . . .
. . . don’t let them
ever take my kids away
I am alone
in the growing mounds
of bills
in the laughter, sobs
& screams
of
five & quickly
six kids
I still work
. . . Hey kids, I
whisper into the phone
ringing up a cash
register
. . . the boss is
gone, come quick . . .
I still work
. . . take
this & that
with a forced smile
. . . & a little
treat for you, too . . .
filling people’s
orders
At night my legs ache
from my veins gone bad
&my mind
wondering how . . . how
&yet the bills
grow like my six kids
I still have my lover
who’s still married
&this
one & that one
&one who will
even bring a cake for the children
What must I do
to feed my children?
What must I do
to get the medicines
for my son?
What must I do
to give them shelter?
Do you want me to
confess my sins?
Then I will
Forgive me, father,
for I have sinned
I have loved
I have committed
adultery, laying with another woman’s man
I have given birth to
bastard children
Forgive me for I have
tore three lives from my womb
Forgive me for
I have stolen from my
master to feed my children
I have laid with
other men to clothe my children
I have lied &
cheated to take care of these children
Forgive me, father,
for I have sinned
I have sinned for
these children you see before you
Forgive me . . .
Forgive me
Damn it, father
I am tired
I am tired of
scrubbing rich people’s floors
I am tired of
scrubbing their toilets
I am tired of picking
rich people’s hairs from their seats
&my teeth
I am just flat-out
tired damn it
& I see that
question, father, in your eyes
set in a face of
contempt
Am I from the hills
or from the hood?
Am I from the rez
or from the barrio?
Am I from the island
or from the moon?
Does it matter?
Damn it
Poetry | Marc Olmsted
 |
| Flower Art by Cynthia Yatchman |
Forbidden Planet
When science
says
the
baby has a
brain
separate from
inside mom, then
we can talk
about life
6/26/22
Sea of Red
The shrouds decide
short-tooth grin or bliss-Christ eyes or
shut-your-mouth glare
The judges are a bad comic book Justice League
&
America’s a dead baby
in the clothes hanger toilet
4th of July sparklers
it's Gojira in the wires of America
(Japan’s dragon martyr we renamed like
everything)
roaring movie spine aglow twin A-bomb eyes
coming to incinerate a court near you
radioactive x-rays - that dark spot is your
karma
The Statue of Liberty has gone
beneath the sea
torch sputtering in the final short
GIANT CLAW descending
7/2/22
Poetry | Kevin R. Pennington
 |
| The Gross Clinic by Thomas Eakins (Source: wiki commons) |
The Way Things Are Now
(for all the women in my life)
A coat hanger
dripping with
blood.
A back alley
clinic
you can’t
trust
to be
sterile.
A women’s
Underground
Railroad.
The law doesn’t
stop anything—
it just makes it
more dangerous.
Abortion
is the ultimate
black market deal
when raped
11-year-old girls
can’t get an
legal exception
and the physician
is afraid to do the
operation.
Poetry | Renee Williams
 |
| Flower Art by Cynthia Yatchman |
“Friend”
Though we never met, we were friends for
years.
Your dog had a peritoneal hernia just as
mine did, so you joined an online forum.
We became more than acquaintances,
through shared experiences, both joyful and harrowing.
Our lives intertwined: you entered my
March Madness tournament, and we teased each other during football season, with
you always rooting for those Georgia Bulldogs and me, following those Buckeyes.
We shared sentiments and concerns
regarding our parents, dealing with declining health issues and the like.
And when your grandson was born with
spina bifida, we prayed for him, and over the internet I watched him grow and
thrive…and also consoled you during the setbacks, too…
For I, too, knew what it was like to
spend long nights in hospitals, wishing, crying, and begging God for help.
Though politically we had our
differences—and they were vast—never did I dream that my speaking out would be
enough for you to step away.
But unfriend me, you did, the very minute
that I supported those affected by this Supreme Court ruling.
Even though you suspected that I
might’ve, could’ve dabbled in witchcraft, that didn’t bother you.
Even though I embraced getting the
vaccine, that didn’t bother you.
But then I never made a show of my
ideological leanings…until now.
For so long, the other side has made its
wishes known, loudly, proudly, without relenting.
And even though it troubled me, I had
room in my head and in my heart for both sides of the conversation.
But on this one issue, this very, very
important matter of choice, I cannot let my voice go unheard.
Never one to make others feel
uncomfortable, I kept my mouth shut for so long,
Probably deep down knowing and fearing
that for some,
There isn’t room for another voice,
And even though the other side has won,
And has pushed back rights that I never
thought I’d see lost in my lifetime,
My voice must be silenced still.
Because there isn’t room in your head or
in your heart to tolerate it.
So I ask myself, were you ever really a
friend?
I regret that I won’t see your grandson
mature.
I realize how important this topic is to
you because if your daughter had listened to some, your grandchild never would
have been born.
But it’s a choice that was offered and
given to her.
Do you ever worry who will care for him
when he ages and you are gone?
When a pregnant friend of mine learned
that her baby had fetal hydrops, she had to make an awful decision: risk dying
of sepsis herself when her baby would perish within her womb, watch her child
be born and then die, or preserve what precious sanity that she had left and
remain healthy to care for her seven-year-old son, if she engaged in the other
option.
Her life was in danger, physically and
mentally.
What choice did she have, really?
Isn’t that between her and God?
What would you have done?
What would you have asked your daughter
to do?
And why should it be any of our business at
all?
Or, is this something that we can’t talk about, either?
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