Happy Mother’s Day.
Earlier this week, after news broke that the Supreme Court intends to overturn Roe v Wade, thereby robbing certain people (myself included) of our bodily autonomy and full reproductive choices, I called every single one of my representatives. This is what I said:
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Hello. My name is Kristan Hoffman, and I am a constituent from the city of Cincinnati. I wanted to call last night, but I needed time. Time to stop vibrating with dread. Now I am ready to act, and I need you to be too. I need you to do everything in your power to protect me, and all women, all girls, all people who could possibly bear children.
I am a mother. I have been pregnant twice, have given birth twice, and am now raising two amazing children who I love deeply. I chose to have them, and I chose when to have them, and I choose not to have anymore. I have the right to my own body. I have EVERY right to my own body, just as a man does.
I’m sure you’ve heard this, but I’ll mention it again, just in case, because I think there is no other argument — nothing about viability, or about the sanctity of life, or about any of these points that we all can debate till the cows come home — there is just this one fact that makes everything so crystal clear:
If someone is dying, and I am the only person in the entire world who can save them with some part of my body — my heart, my lung, my blood, my anything — still I cannot be forced to give it to them. Not even if their injury is the consequence of my actions. Nobody — not a judge, not a doctor, not my partner, nobody — can compel me to sacrifice a part of my body unwillingly to save another person’s life.
Because that is a fundamental human right. And it must be enshrined into law.
That is your job. Please go do it.