I was originally writing this a few hours after leaving my physician’s office. Going to a specialist is never fun, even one you like and respect. Even one who listens to you and works with your body, that seems to have an unbearable bad reaction to almost every medication in a class of medication you must take to avoid ending up back in the hospital. Even though my doctor had moved to a new office, another kind man who turned out to be the doctor next door walked me to the office, opened the door and told me have a nice day. My first thought was what a difference it was from the gauntlet women in my home state have to walk through just to get medical care. Medical care that even though it was a different kind than mine, was just as vital.
All I had to do was whip out a new insurance card and I was ushered back to the office. Not that it does any good for those seeking an abortion in my former home state. Those who make the laws have determined abortion is evil and that those good people who pay into an insurance pool, or pay taxe, must not have their blessed tax dollars sullied by the evils of abortion. There is no equality, no compassion and no thought of the women that they see as just a shell for a fetus
Yes, I do have a point. What inspired this particular rant was that as I waiting in my doctor’s office, where they apologize if you sit for five minutes past your appointment time, I was looking at an article about a woman who was clearly an inmate in jail scrubs, wearing a waist chain and handcuffs, being shuffled, head down, into a Planned Parenthood by two uniformed officers.
And then it hit me. Hard. My privilege. My private and uninterrupted walk down a short sidewalk to my doctor’s office with nobody telling me I was going to hell.
There I sat irritated about internet access on my phone and some woman was being shuffled into a Planned Parenthood, in full jail regalia while being filmed by some anti-choice asshole who couldn’t give a flip about her or why she was there. I’m also 99% sure that it never occurred to them that it was none of their business.
For whatever reason she was there, this nameless woman, shuffling head down in a jail uniform will forever be stuck in my mind when I compare it with the short, peaceful walk made without interference to my own doctor. The other thing that will forever be stuck in my mind is that our places could just as easily be switched. In spite of the pull-yourself-up-by-your bootstraps rhetoric spewed by antis, this just isn’t the case. Certainly, people pull themselves out of bad circumstances. Some people are just born lucky or end up with better opportunities.
This case really made me think hard about the woman being shuffled into a medical appointment. More personally, I thought about who have I become, when my first worry is the phone and internet coverage in my specialist’s office and not the women who have to fight a battle just to get legal health care?
Mostly, it makes me wonder what happened to compassion in this country. When did we become a nation where it is okay to film a woman in already bad circumstances going into her doctor’s appointment? She deserved the same privacy and dignity that I had, but people seemed more worried about snapping her picture than giving her space, dignity and healthcare.
Given the latest round of anti-violence in Colorado Springs, this seems trivial on a certain level. (Disclaimer: I wrote this article before Colorado Springs and had to revise and edit afterwards due to some other commitments.)
Surely though, surely, our country hasn’t become a place so devoid of compassion that all women can’t get healthcare with privacy and dignity…..and oh yeah, without being afraid of being killed.
