These Are Apparently the Times We Are Living In Now

I don’t typically discuss political things or things that are going on all over the world here. That is unless those things have affected my mental state so much, to the point where I have to get what I’m feeling out or else I will scream. So, to avoid having people looking at me crazy or my neighbors thinking that I’m dying in my apartment I have to get some things off my chest. Now if you are a conservative who is in favor of what the Supreme Court has done to this country in the last week alone, I am sorry, but this post is not going to be for you.

This Supreme Court sucks! I am so profoundly devastated by the thoughtless and dangerous decisions that the Supreme Court handed down, not JUST on Friday but on Thursday too because in one breathe they’re saying the state of New York can’t have a say on how they handle guns and everyone is now free to run around New York all willy nilly with their guns out, while turning around on Friday to say “oh but we trust the states enough to make them the arbiters over women’s bodies” because that makes sense. Let me make this clear, I am neither for or against abortion. What I am for is women having a say over what to do with their own bodies and with their own situations. I am not for a bunch of old men (mostly anyway) getting to control whether a woman does or does not have a baby.

I watched as pro-life people talked to reporters about being the voice for the lives of the unborn children and I wanted to scream and say, “so to hell with the life of that mother who is carrying that unborn child”. No woman wakes up saying “hey I want to go out and get pregnant with a child I may or may not be able to afford and then precede to have an abortion”, that’s just ridiculous and that is how the pro-life movement is presenting things. Either that or they are relegating it down to making it as simple as saying women only choose to have an abortion because they are not being told by the masses that they are strong and capable enough to be a mom.

Well, here’s a thought, what if a woman just simply doesn’t desire to have children or if they have decided that 3 is their cap and they don’t want any more. Or what if you have a child who is raped and gets pregnant? So, then she just has to suck it up and deal with it? I literally wanted to scream when I saw a pro-life activist on CNN the other night and her response to the child who is raped question was “we don’t answer violence with violence and abortion is violence”. I wanted to yell at that woman and ask her so is her answer to punish the child who doesn’t bare any blame in that scenario with a responsibility that she is not mentally or financially ready for?

I watched another young woman who celebrated the decision by relaying a story of a teenage girl who she helped through a difficult time in which she made the choice not to go through with the abortion and I thought great, but you’re apparently losing the point that she had a choice, the decision wasn’t made for her. Anyone who is pro-life or pro-women for that matter, seriously needs to think about the fact that they are celebrating women no longer having a say over what they can and can’t do with their own bodies and in their own families. Every woman’s story is not the same and to impose your belief systems and moral reasoning on women as a whole is just wrong. It’s interesting how no one wants to regulate men’s bodies, force them to get vasectomies, take away their options to get these women pregnant.

I am so livid about this that I literally could not focus all of Friday and the vast majority of the weekend. For Justice Alito to say this text is not a part of the Constitution as his reasoning for this decision is ludicrous because in the text of the Constitution, I would not even be considered a person, but instead property. I also would not even be allowed to vote. It makes me wonder just how far back he wants to take us. And if you think that they are going to stop here then look no further than Justice Thomas’s concurrent opinion in which he thinks they need to overturn rights to contraception and marriage equality, i.e., same sex marriage. Who are they to tell someone who they can and cannot love? Who are they to regulate whether a married couple or anyone having sexual relations can actually use various methods of protection to at least try to keep themselves from getting pregnant? What kind of place are we living in right now?

This is not the country I grew up loving. I was born after Roe v Wade was in place, so I’ve never known anything but being able to have rights over my own body. So now my daughter is going to go into her adulthood not having rights that she had when she came into this world? What are we doing right now? I am just saddened for this country and I’m sad for my daughter and the daughters of other women I know. I’m extremely sad for my niece who lives in Oklahoma (a state who now holds one of the strictest laws against abortion I’ve ever seen) and is a young woman now and I’m worried about if she were to end up in a scenario that she didn’t want to be in. She would just be forced to do something she doesn’t want to do, being a mom (because she doesn’t even know if she wants kids)?

I just… I’m out of words now… I can’t understand what is happening and I’m just sad. These are dangerous times we are in, and it’s just not supposed to be this way. In the land of the free, we’re not really all that free, are we? Then again, I guess we never really were.

Until next time… #BeVigilant #BeStrong #BePersistent

Jimmetta Carpenter

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A Wrong That Can’t Be Undone

“Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders.”
~Albert Camus 

Today I am deeply saddened by the unjust execution of Troy Davis last night at11:08pm.  For a moment there it was a small glimmer of hope that people that are a part of this so-called justice system would do the decent thing, the right thing, and stay his execution.  But nevertheless shortly after10:00pm the Supreme Court unanimously decided not to even give a thought to the fact that the man that they were about to put to death was more than likely innocent.  They cared more about saving face and not having to admit that they were wrong then the life of this man and his family.  

They claim that their reasoning had everything to do with giving closure to the family of the victim but I don’t understand how closure can come from the real killer being allowed to still walk the streets free and the life of yet another innocent person is gone.  What will they say when Troy Davis’s family does in fact dig deeper and they do discover that they got it wrong?  Do they think that sorry is going to help the suffering that his family now has to feel?  Or are they just so blinded by their need to have been right about his conviction that they couldn’t see fit to entertain the possibility that they were wrong.  

I’m not going to go into the exact details of the case because I would just get more enraged at the clear evidence that he was innocent, but I will just say that last night might have been the very first time that I was not proud to be an American.  The death penalty is wrong to begin with for so many reasons; one being that just because a person takes another’s life doesn’t give the government the right to play God and do the same.  More than anything the death penalty is wrong because too many times they get it wrong.  

I shed a few tears last night for Troy Davis, for his family, but also for the victim’s family because they think that they’ve gotten some kind of closure and justice when this is anything but.  I hate feeling powerless and as if there is nothing I can do to make things in this world better for me and for my daughter and for her future children.  

I think what also saddened me that much more was the statement from President Obama, or the White House rather, that it would have been inappropriate for him to weigh in and share his thoughts and his opinion.  I think that it was actually inappropriate for him not to say something, as the President of THIS country.  He cares more about the end result in another country than the life of an innocent man being executed here in this one.  I am completely disgusted with the legal system in this country that is supposed to provide justice.  After this I don’t know why anyone would ever put their faith in it again.     

Even in Troy Davis’ last words he proclaimed his innocence and asked that they keep looking into his case so that they can find out the truth of what happened.  He even asked God to bless the men who were ending his life and that God would have mercy on their souls.  I guess we should take a page from his book when thinking about all of the people who actually had the power to do the right thing and pray for them and for their souls.  It’s just a shame when you have the power to make things right and you blatantly choose not to.   Until next time…Fight for what you believe in until you don’t have any more fight left! 

“To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice.”
~Desmond Tutu

 

Jimmetta Carpenter

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