This morning we turned the clock back fifty years because of three stolen Scotus seats.
Because some people “Just didn’t Like Hillary!”
This day will live in infamy.
We are headed back to the dark ages, of dark alleys and illegal, unsafe abortion. An entire generation of young women just had their lives dramatically altered. The cruelty of this decision is breathtaking.
I am gasping for air. I can’t breathe.
Turning Back
As the Supreme Court drags us back to the past it’s no accident that my feelings are drawn from the past as well.
I feel as sick as I’ve ever felt.
Like the shock of hearing John Kennedy assassinated as an 8-year-old. The first crack in my American Dream. Surreal. Incomprehensible. Not in America.
But the cracks and fault lines have only deepened in America until they burst wide open today.
Then there was the dark morning of November 9, 2016, when I had the same bilious feeling as I do right now. I had gone to sleep on election night concerned that Hillary was slipping in the returns but still confident in her victory.
Waking up at 4 a.m., I instinctively grabbed my iPhone and scrolled to a news site. Through blurry eyes, I read the words: “President-elect Donald J Trump.”
I gasped. I couldn’t breathe. My reaction was swift, visceral, and violent not unlike hearing about Roe v Wade today.
It was a gut punch to the stomach. I turned ashen, as my stomach churned. I felt the bile rise to my throat in anger and disbelief. I felt helpless and disconnected from my country.
In fact, I wanted to throw up.
Consequences
Elections have consequences. And now we are living it. The religious right made a Faustian pact with the Devil. Donald Trump, a serial sexual predator who has never read the Bible, came through for them. Bigly
We are now deriving U.S. law from the Bible
Who knew a cautionary tale like Handmaid’s Tale would be gospel for the Supreme Court, as our country slides slowly into Gideon. Trump’s America has been waging a war on women and now that Roe v Wade is overturned we know it’s the opening salvo. They are gunning for same-sex marriage and contraception.
We now have to gun for those fear-based white conservative men who want to return us back to an America ruled by white men. The good old days — before desegregation, before gay rights, before legal abortion, before raping your wife was illegal, before more than a handful of women were in the workforce.
When America was great. We now see this is not just in rhetoric, but in policy that aims to take us back to those Good Old Days.
When so many of us could not breathe.
The Supreme Court may be turning back time and turning its back on so many of us, but we cannot turn away.
We need to catch our breath again and then vote like our life depended on it. Because it does.
Envisioning The American Dream 
I thought my week couldn’t get any worse, then I saw all the rapid news clips pop up on YouTube saying RvW was overturned. That stone sank into my stomach and I’m just drained at the thought. I’ve called myself a “recovering recluse”, but now I’m an inch away from finding every job I have that won’t need me to leave the house and developing all the skills I can.
Every summer seems to bring worse news to my ears lately, and this one’s a doozy. I don’t even know what to think, to say. Something deep inside hurts, and I’m very uneasy. I grew up fundamentalist with a prudish view on sex, to the point where because of all the scare tactics, the idea of having it consensually (let alone NOT) is scary to me. But I’m outright freaked out at the idea that someone could assault me and I wouldn’t be able to have an abortion if necessary, or I’d face jail time.
What’s funny is even when I was raised fundamentalist in a conservative bubble, when I was old enough to put my name to petitions and they had some for abortion protections, I’d read ’em and sign. I didn’t like the idea of abortion, but I also strongly felt that life is complicated and bad crap happens and curbing protections in one area would mean a slippery slope to curb protections in all areas til there was no protection at all. I couldn’t understand the logic of those who wanted to ban abortions but also promote abstinence only and/or ban the pill or Plan B. I mean, if birth control is widely accessible, you don’t need so many abortions, right? But I realized that some folks will have two different thoughts in their head and never think to connect them and see if they contradict each other. And it’s worse and worse these days.
Be well, folks. I’ve been too terrified to read “The Handmaid’s Tale” (I knew just from the descriptions it would scare the hell out of me), but it seems very apropos now.
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This is a dark day, and sadly, I only see more to follow. You need not read Handmaid’s Tale- it’s all happening before your eyes on CNN. And it’s just as horrifying
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If America were to go back to the days of segregation, I wonder how Justice Clarence Thomas would react to that scenario. I believe the ultra-conservative SCOTUS is coming for the rest of us Americans. The Republican Agenda just scored another touchdown and the Democrats are just sitting around with their heads buried in their hands.
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Sadly you are right. They are coming after so many liberties and rights we have had over the past half-century. I’m not certain I agree the dems are being passive, but I am certain as a voter we can and must not be passive when it comes to voting these midterm and vote the Republicans the hell out.
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I have mixed feelings about abortion. I spent months in bed to make sure I didn’t lose my baby. He’s since raised babies of his own.
I do believe abortion shouldn’t be black and white. Babies aren’t like unwanted packages. If it’s ‘my body, my choice’, it’s equally ‘my’ responsibility to take contraceptives or the morning after pill. It’s not like fifty years ago when single pregnant women were shamed. There are options. Women shouldn’t have an abortion simply because they’ve changed their mind.
As I said, it shouldn’t be black and white. Women should have a choice about what to do if they are pregnant because they have been raped or are having babies with congenital abnormalities. There should be options, there has to be some happy medium.
I wish I’d taken notes at the time, but a couple of years ago I watched a news report with horror. A woman was questioned how she felt about late term abortion, even up to the moment of birth. It took her a while to admit it, but she finally said she was all right with it.
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Like most women who have had abortions, it is never an easy decision. It is gut-wrenching. Although I terminated a pregnancy over 35 years ago, I think about it all the time. But it was the right decision but one made with difficulty and mixed feelings.
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Gut punch is the term I would use as well. You’d think the public outcry after the Alito draft was leaked would give the conservatives food for thought but I fear this is a vindictive group,.Look at their ruling on guns in New York, funding religious schools in Maine and Clarence Thomas’s additional concurring opinion on decsions affecting contraception — a glimpse into what’s to come. We’ve got to mobilize and fight like hell.
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I’m with you. I fear Roe is just the tip of their chilly iceberg, if Thomas is ahint of the direction they are thinking of. It has been a one 2 punch within 48 hours of the gun ruling and then the death of Roe. They are also attacking Miranda Rights. Life and liberties as we knew it are dissolving before our eyes. We must mobilize as if at war because we are. And Vote blue!
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I hope this doesn’t mean there will be businesses with a sign on the door “For Whites Only”. You’ve expressed your feeling from the heart Sally. Happy to share them.
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Thank you. It’s quite telling that among all the social liberties he wants to destroy, Thomas has not mentioned repealing Va. v Loving which would destroy his marriage to the ever lovely Ginni!
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Pingback: Roe v Wade Overturned -I Can’t Breathe — Envisioning The American Dream – KandyKurvezzz
Stupid… it wasn’t overturned… just set to allow the PEOPLE to choose. Don’t be a DUMB DEM…. wise up, and read real information, not from the Clinton News Network.
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Sally, I was raised by parents who adored artists and beatniks in Greenwich Village in the 1950s. We lived in the Albert Hotel a few months before getting an apartment. Just so you know a little about me. I do not approve of continuous wars, either.
I finally figured you out. You veil your hatred with humor. You’re an unashamed Christ hater. You really hate Christian life we created here. I saw your BLASPHEMOUS collage of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I would NEVER pose a Jewish rabbi, for example, among nude women, dogs, foodstuffs. (Of course, a Jewess like yourself would pay to have herself in such a pose.) See it here – https://www.sallyedelsteincollage.com/
After becoming pro-life, I learned plenty of truths. That COAT HANGER IMAGE that is so treasured by the left refers to ONE PREGNANT MENTALLY ILL PERSON who used it on herself. Please!
May was Jewish Pride Month, as you know. “On the World Congress Twitter feed, Jews have proudly announced that Jews were behind every culturally subversive movement in 20th Century America.” E. Michael Jones reading from a letter written to him. EMJ Live #27. June 2023. Rumble. (That Twitter post was removed but Jones shows it.)
Call me an antisemite, go ahead. Jews are distrusted because of the veiled but seething hatred Jews like you have for the Christian way of life. Every Hollywood movie portrays Christians as hating marriage, parenting, fidelity, and religion but that’s Hollywood’s Jewish home movies.
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You claim to have figured me out, but the only hatred I see here is the one coming from you. I do not now nor have i ever written or thought anti-Christian sentiments. I in fact do take to task those who seem to be self-proclaimed Christians who seem to act in very non-Christian, hateful, and unloving ways.
Your ludicrous comment that Jews have proudly announced they are behind every subversive movement in the 20th century is so ridiculous it does not warrant me to comment and your source is an unreliable one.
If you find both my opinions and writing to be so hateful I am not sure how or why you find yourself here.
My politics are progressive, but that does not mean hateful.
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I request you remove my comments. I was angry when I saw your collage. Please remove my comment. It’s useless trying to educate you.
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P.S. Believe it or not, I once dated a lovely Jewish guy for three years. I have a compassion for Jews who are not revolutionary or trying to change Christian culture.
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Ps Believe it not I have dated lovely Christians myself.
By the way, I do not personally know of a single Jew who wishes to change Christian culture, including me.
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Question: do you deny you created the collage showing Jesus with nude women, dogs, and foodstuffs? That is mockery of my faith, hateful.
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I apologize if my art offended you which was not my intent. It was about the male gaze.
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Hi Sally, I must say that I appreciate your civilized response by apologizing for your insensitive collage that mocks Jesus. That is what I wanted, after all. If I were to portray Moses, say, with nude women, dogs, and foodstuffs, I would expect Jews to be angry. You know, Catholics like me are fed up with blasphemous art. There’s a film depicting Jesus as marrying Mary Magdalene; an art piece known as “Christ Piss” that was paid for by American taxpayers. On and on.
I enjoy your work otherwise. Collage work is interesting and an avenue of history that is appreciated.
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At NYU in 1951 I may have been among the group of Greenwich Village folks who raised your correspondent. There were Jews and non-Jews who gathered in coffee houses to discuss goings on in the world. I must take exception to her referring to one mentally ill individual who (using the image of a coat hanger) took matters into her own hands to have an abortion. There were many. Life in the days before Roe was potentially dangerous for women. Women have a right to choose non judgmental medical options. That means taking anti-depressants, birth control, and abortions under medical supervision.
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Thank you Ellie for addressing the abortion comment which of course was quite inaccurate. The measures many women took in the pre-Roe days is frightening and there are too many horror stories. That time period and the drastic measures women went to to terminate an unwanted pregnancy looms over us now as Roe vWade is steamrolled over in many states.
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