Repubs have lost young women forever

[calimary]

46. Yeah, it kinda shook me up, too, Ilsa. I was VERY worried. I'm one of the many women you heard

(and you probably said this yourself, too), wondering WHY THE HELL WE'RE STILL FIGHTING THIS ONE???? This was SETTLED. DECADES ago!!! WHY do we still have to fight this? WHY is it still coming up? WHY is it still an issue - now that we've moved into the 21st Century? WHY are we still having to protect and defend this right that we fought for, AND WON, YEARS ago????

There was one day when I found myself back on the ol' soap box again, in front of my daughter and a couple of her friends. I looked 'em straight in the eye and said - "you know, we FOUGHT for these rights, we FOUGHT to preserve a woman's right to choose, we FOUGHT to secure a woman's right to have the last word, the FULL sovereignty, over her own body. We fought, we marched, we lobbied, we petitioned, we campaigned, we wrote letters and made phone calls and carried signs, we complained to our legislators again and again, we were disrespected and denounced and vilified, and legions of know-it-alls and holier-than-thous and bedroom-busybodies stood in the way, EVERY WHICHAWAY, and tried with all their might to pull down and destroy what we were trying to build, and keep us firmly in our places as second-class citizens. And some of us died. Women DIED. Shit, it's happening NOW - just did, in Ireland, where a young woman died because she couldn't get an abortion. A deliberately untreated faulty pregnancy cost her her life! The news about that was THIS WEEK.

But we kept on and wouldn't give up, and we eventually reached critical mass and made the difference. It was WORK. All arduous and all uphill. Over years and MORE years. It was a real struggle to achieve. And it's been allowed to backslide ever since. The gains we made have been under seige from the very beginning! People are STILL trying to deny us that right - to choose what WE need for OUR bodies and OUR physical health. To have the last word over what happens to OUR bodies. I mean, does anybody butt in on men with legislation aimed at governing their testicles and/or dicks? Maybe some of the women newly elected to Congress or the Senate could start something like that? I tell you, I just resent it SO DAMN MUCH!!!!!!! But then again I'm probably taking it a little too personally.

And I told my daughter and her friends these things. And I said "we in my generation worked and slaved and sacrificed and struggled to win this right, and YOUR generation needs to remember that. Because there are forces NOW, THIS MINUTE, doing everything they can to take that right away from you. NOW. THIS MINUTE. I'm not exaggerating, either, or just trying to scare you or something. Your generation needs to protect that right that we fought so hard to win - for ALL of us, especially our future generations.

They listened. I didn't think they were really taking it in. Judging from the results of this election, perhaps I underestimated them. They're the youth vote we talk about. Them. On their first or second time voting for President. Her little brother voted - his first time - this year, too. For Obama. And I think they may be the generation that fixes a few things. Definitely I think the gay prejudices and hostilities and misinformation bullshit will be forced into near-oblivion. They'll always be around, but there are too many broader-minded young people reaching voting age, and they're participating. They're appreciating what they've been given, and they're making use of those gifts. Yeah, wrongney. Gifts. And they're gonna make sure some of the old bad narrow-minded crap dies out. Or, perhaps more accurately stated, the old bad narrow-minded crap will die out on its own, and they'll be the ones replacing it with open-mindedness and tolerance and high-information voting habits.

But that part of it is up to us - the ones who broke through, or witnessed those times. We know how it was before those rights were won. We're old enough to remember, and it's on us to pass that history down to our youngers, to educate and inspire and keep the record set straight. So that they know. So that they have a sense of cause and effect, and an understanding of how and why all this came to be. They need that information if they're to carry the torch onward and FORWARD, from here.