The safest picture here

It is my final day of work until September. I go to the girls' wing to tell them I will miss them. I do not go to the boys' wings. In part, it is because the facility was having issues with the doors, and it would require too much of a hassle for someone in the booth to let me in. The rest is, while I would miss individual boys, they were not on the same unit, and I will not miss them as a whole.

One of our residents is pregnant and will give birth this summer. She snaps that she will not miss me. I assure her this does not affect me much since she doesn't know me. She is not my student, and, though I have been cordial to her, she is rarely around when I am and does not come down to the school wing. She is about as satisfied by this retort as she will be.

When I return to the education office to while away the remainder of the day -- it is a noneducational day, and school has been done for a week -- one of my more right-wing colleagues watches Newsmax on two computers. He smirks as though his favorite football team had won by causing a compound fracture to the best player on the other team. I look at his screen and see that, as they guaranteed that they would not do during their confirmation hearings and as was explicitly affirmed in a leaked memo, the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade.

I do not see any plenty in arguing with this man that this is not a cause for his cheeriness. He is a Catholic and Trumpian Conservative. Jesus himself could tell him not to be overjoyed, but his Messiah wears an oversized suit and spray tan.

I had been working on one of my books -- your tax dollars at work --- but I cannot focus on it now. I read articles on more moderate sites, confirming what happened, displaying the reactions (despair and gloating, respectively), and reporting how immediately other countries (England, Canada, France, Australia, and India) put out statements decrying it and hoping that this blow to women's rights does not hit their borders.

I cry halfway through driving home and am anxious until Amber returns.

I have never been the cause of an abortion. There have been a couple of pregnancy scares (literally a couple, literally just scares), but never anything serious or was not immediately dispelled by peeing on a stick.

I'm not too fond of the idea of abortions, medical ones especially. I have known a few people who have had abortions -- or a few who have told me. I read a statistic that around one in four women will have an abortion in their lives, but that seems unsettlingly high.

I passionately believe in a pregnant person's right to choose, and, as I am not a person who can become pregnant, my stake in this is primarily as a supporter.

Clarence Thomas wastes no time in putting out a statement that he wishes someone would next go after gay sex, equal marriage, and contraception. I did not know that we allowed judges to call out the following cases they want to try and what their votes will be when we do, as though they are playing billiard with civil rights. As he is married to a (treasonous, conspiracy theorist) white woman and Loving isn't on any firmer ground than Oberfeld, this does not seem prudent. Perhaps this is how a religious man gets a divorce. Maybe he fancies himself on par with Henry VIII.

My social media matches the mood of the troubled people on the news. We knew it was coming, and we are nevertheless surprised that established fifty years of precedent can be overturned at a whim by people with a clear plan whom Trump appointed to do this. (He said as much. The Evangelicals anointed this personification of the Deadly Sins because he promised to overturn Roe. His stain will not leave this country for a generation, short of the court losing some specific members soon.)

I don't expect to change anyone's opinion on this. It is too entrenched, becoming identity politics rather than an issue of medical privacy. States immediately illegalize abortions and say that they will prosecute people who try to leave to get treatment. Other states -- including New York -- put on record that they are sanctuaries for people who need to get abortions. Maine goes as far as to put on paper that they will not extradite. It should be harrowing for anyone to hear that extradition between states might be attempted.

I doubt anyone wants to be in a place where she had to have an abortion, no matter the strawman of the person who uses this invasive procedure as birth control. It is emotionally and physically trying, even when it is just a pill. When people bring up the "they are killing babies at nine months" thought-terminating propaganda, it ignores that no one carries a baby that long gets an abortion if she doesn't have to. Either the mother or the baby wasn't going to survive -- maybe both. Given the mothers I know, I hazard a guess that it is essentially the latter: nonviable pregnancy or a baby who died in utero.

My family, our political skews divergent, at once feels the stress. We communicate by memes and jokes, but they have more barbs now. I tolerated it better when it was just their appreciating Trump and disparaging Biden -- I am a fan of neither, though I dislike one less. Now, all the culture war -- transgender people, vaccines, gas prices, etc. -- is poured into this container, already too full for its own good. A month ago, they did not care about abortion enough for the fight. Now, I know it will be a source of ideological strife. I am a child of should-have-been divorce and the middle child to boot, so my urge is to placate and find compromise. This has been snatched from me. There is no compromise when the Supreme Court takes away the right to choose even that.

I do not think the politicians care about this issue, only riling their base. The extremists on the right think liberals are drop-kicking three-month-olds and calling it abortion, while they threaten to kill women who order abortifacients through the mail. Who are the extremists on the left? No one in power. The Democrats in America are center-right at best. Their only concept of fighting back is to roll onto their soft underbellies and tell us to vote for them so they can think about maybe someday asking Trump to let them have condoms again if they promise to cancel every gay marriage. Also, make sure to donate, or they won't even consider that much. People protested outside the justices' houses, but the government swiftly passed laws to criminalize that and enshrined the right to hit protesters with cars.

It is not for me to state when life begins and whether there should be a cut-off. Again, I do not intend to change anyone's mind or run into this fray screaming my righteousness. That they revisited this topic after a long precedent, given that it will affect people I love and that a member of the Supreme Court wants to overturn my friends' marriages next, fills me with a profound sadness that manifests in anxiety and depression. Now is not the time for narrowmindedness and overt lies. Now is not the time for the adulation of forced births to increase the supply of adoptable domestic infants -- an actual clause in one of the decisions footnotes. But it will happen anyway because we are not a country of thoughtfulness or consideration. We feel first, act second, and do not get around to thinking about it until a distant third, if we think it at all.

last watched: Umbrella Academy
reading: My Best Friend's Exorcism