I cannot believe we have to talk about abortion AGAIN.
I have been closely following the reporting about abortion. Here in the Netherlands it was Baudet who started the conversation up again, in an essay about Houellebecq. In other European countries - Italy, Poland, Spain - politicians were elected who would love to limit the right of a woman to decide about her own womb.
Last week, in the American state Alabama, a very restrictive abortion law has been passed which means women can only have an abortion if their own life/health is at risk. In all other cases abortion is illegal, even when you get pregnant through rape or incest.
Goddamned. Suddenly we have to start fighting again for the right to choose. Like Sheila Sitalsing in the Volkskrant newspaper wrote: It happens from time to time, you look away and concentrate on other things and when you look back things that were settled suddenly start disappearing. Every in Europe surly men start interfering with women's rights and what happens in their wombs.
The more I read about this, the angrier I get. And that anger is mostly caused by the fact that I cannot believe we have to start discussing this again. We had done this before and it was decided. Do we have to again start making the list of all the reasons why a woman should be the boss about what happens in her womb and uterus?
Yes, it seems so. Because even here in the Netherlands there are a lot of people voting for a guy would could care less about the rights of women to choose.
And that is dejecting. There are so many things we could be worrying about and dealing with. There are so many other countries in the world were women have it a lot worse than we have it here. So it would at a minimum be time saving if we do not have to start messing around with a woman's right to choose in our country.
A famous protest hit is a sign or a cardboard sign with the text "I can't beleive I'm still protesting this ****", held up by a older woman. At every feminist protest there is at least one women with a sign/banner like that. And that is exactly how I feel. I am only 34 years old. Women have just as much dominion about their own body as men have about their body. Periond!!!! Now can we start discussing the pay gap between men and women again?
Translated from a column in the AD newspaper of the 24th of May 2019