Where Women Aren't As Free

Where Women Aren’t As Free is an ongoing documentary project chronicling the continuing battle over women's bodily autonomy and the erosion of abortion rights across the United States.

I never asked to be born nor blessed with this body - I didn’t have a say in whether or not my form carried the communal consequences for the acts of two. I never asked for the privilege of a body that bares children - it was thrust upon me like blue eyes or white skin or blonde hair; inherent from my conception, biologically undeniable, unquestionably inevitable, genetically unchangeable. From the first breaths I took on this earth, it was pre-determined that my body would rebel against my own personal preferences, my dreams and intentions; it carries a mind of its own, an instinctual survival mechanism I never wished for. For some it is an immeasurable blessing - for those of us not ready or willing, it is a nearly unbearable burden.

I remember: my coworkers in college debating the validity of my pro-choice stance, arguing the best birth control was to keep an aspirin between my knees; being debilitated by the side effects of a quarterly needle in my arm as depo provera leached calcium from my bones, a birth control so severe in side effects that they don’t advise taking it for more than 2 years; sitting in the planned parenthood office, terrified that my rapist had gotten me pregnant during my inebriated state, as he could have easily removed the condom without my knowledge; waiting 6 months to ask my doctor at the age of 30 about tubal ligation (she told me we could talk about it in a year or two) to prove to a mansplainer who’d argued with me just how nearly impossible it is to get permanent contraception unless you’re already married or have children; suffering a panic attack when my doctor discovered my IUD had pierced the back of my cervix 3 months into the Trump presidency (when they were attempting to remove the birth control mandate from healthcare law), which would have left me incapable of affording ($600) the only other form of contraception I could take due to pre-existing conditions (that I should not have to justify or explain); my ex-partner adamantly refusing to get a vasectomy, even though he was 10 years my senior (40) and explicitly stated he did not want children, despite my desperation to be IUD-free due to crippling pains that left me nearly collapsing on NYC sidewalks walking to the train; having dozens upon dozens of people tell me since age 15 that I would change my mind nearly every single time I’ve expressed publicly and verbally my innate lack of desire to ever have children - I am still hearing it now at 34 with infuriatingly consistent frequency.

I would gladly trade these ovaries in if it were that easy; the fact of the matter is, it’s simply my biology. I love being a woman, embracing my femininity, and that doesn’t mean I need to carry with it a dream-life-death-sentence where all my hopes are perpetually threatened by a procreative predisposition I never asked to have, the risk of a mother I never wanted to be. No (cis)man has ever been forced to provide his body, wellbeing, life, and sustenance to support another entity, and I deserve every right a man has in his ability to predetermine his own destiny. My body is not just a birthing chamber for your blessed babies; it is mine, and mine alone - it does not belong to you, not to anybody but me.