As an official Mom on Erev Mom-Day, I think I may be entitled to use my platform for one rant allotment, after all my self-restraint and boring garden posts!  This one is difficult to keep silent about.  It’s terrifying, and will hurt us all if left unchecked.

Let’s be honest: Republicans a.k.a. Repugs won’t stop at overturning women’s reproductive rights.  If you think it doesn’t affect you, think again.  If repugs via their stacked Supreme Court can come for women’s medical rights, they will come for LGBTQ+ rights, racial equality, voting rights, and any other target they oppose.  In fact, states have already begun to restrict and criminalize basic constitutional freedoms, and will only escalate these attacks if/when Roe v. Wade is overturned.

It appears we will have little or no legal, constitutional recourse.  This is a dangerous precedent that will immediately take effect and could affect each of us personally.  It’s just a matter of time until repug nazis infiltrate every level of state and local government.  They’re already restricting access to voting and women’s healthcare in many states, so don’t assume your most basic right to vote your conscience or access medical help is safe.

I’ve personally witnessed healthcare discrimination against trans patients in extremely red states, but when it becomes a criminal offense for doctors to provide reproductive choices or healthcare, or for anyone to assist patients in obtaining that care, not to mention restrictions on whom you can marry, what you can read or teach, or access to voting options, to name just a few, we have seriously entered into nazi territory.  If you know your history (not the repug-sanctioned version), you’ll recognize all the signs.

I’m a proud Mom.  My only childbirth was difficult and almost didn’t happen, so I don’t take my son for granted.  He was what the religious right would call a “miracle”.  My later sudden miscarriage was hellish, and not only because the father wanted to save the unviable fetus even at the cost of my life (for religious reasons), if it came to that.  I’ve never talked about it much, I just moved on, literally and mentally.

All I know is, if you call yourself “pro-life”, you can’t be selective about whose life is sacred and whose is disposable.  You can’t play god with people’s lives and right to choose.  You can’t demand unwanted children be born and then not provide the help and homes they and their Moms desperately need.  Hypocrites! (as Jesus would say.)  You’d better examine your personal ethics and justice system, before you throw the first stone.

OK, there you have it.  I wish I could do more than simply vote, but I’m grateful I can still at least do that.  It may or may not help change the course of events, but I try not to lose all faith in our democracy.  I’m a realist, but somewhere deep down my inner hippie still wants to believe!  And my inner Mom will always support the right to choose to become one or not.

Vote as if your life depends on it, because it may.

Happy M-Day to all the single parents struggling to raise kids, all the kids who’ve lost a Mom, all the parents who’ve lost a kid, and to my son who would make a fine Mother!  And now back to our normally-scheduled program.  Here are flowers.