It should not take a woman standing unaided and talking for almost eleven hours straight to protect the right of access to abortion and reproductive/health services in the United States...not after Roe v. Wade. But even now, a lone Texas state senator, Wendy Davis, has done just that, and with the help of her Democratic senate colleagues, is running down the clock on a senate bill that will all but extinguish access to abortion and reproductive/sexual health services, and in a state as large as Texas, you can only imagine the devastating impact that will have.
As if that wasn't bad enough, today the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a ruling that utterly guts the Voting Rights Act provisions designed to protect the right to vote for minorities in states with a dark, disgusting history of constraining or outright stripping people of their democratically-protected right to cast a ballot. The ruling paves the way for these states to start imposing all kinds of rules which will impede the ability to register to vote or cast a ballot for of a majority of poor people, minorities, young voters, immigrants and the elderly, aka. the Democratic party's base. The ruling also clears the way for an assload of gerrymandering which will also no doubt further diminish the voting power of these groups.
And the Democratic party is doing nothing but bitching and taking the high road.
Fuck, these days, I don't have a lot of reasons to be glad I live in Canada, but today I have two: my right to choose is preserved, even under a Conservative majority government, and my right to vote isn't subject to racist bullshit "laws" anymore.
Reminders are important...
...Wish you were here.
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