Student upset about injustice

 For this assignment, I researched the new policy that the Biden administration passed that made  it federally legal for doctors at Planned Parenthood clinics to give referrals for abortions.

Honestly, it astonishes me at times how behind we still are in our reproductive rights for women due to the gender equality in the workforce, which gives me a false understanding of how far we have come. Not only are women continuing to fight for the right to terminate pregnancies in an ethical timeline, but women are still fighting for proper rights for birth control, education about their bodies and menstrual cycles, and even to have their tubes tied without the consent of a husband or two children already. 

In addition to these physical needs by women that are being fought for, women are continuing to fight for the respect of their bodies by the rest of the population. Rape cases, physical assault, and domestic abuse cases are all difficult for women to prove, or win, or even bring to the attention of someone in the first place because honestly nobody  wants to listen most of the time. Even other women do not want to listen sometimes, or are not comfortable hearing about something like that happening, so they just pretend like it doesn’t, and continue perpetuating the patriarchal society and culture we live in today. 

Women are not the only group being ignored, though, so I don't even know if it is a truly patriarchal culture or if it is  just a society that sucks if you are not born into the right circumstances.  Perhaps the problems of our culture are deepened by these people being in the government and making all of the legislation that affects the people who just have to deal with not being born into the right circumstances. 

Indigenous people on reservations are suffering from extreme poverty, substance use disorders, and lack of education, but we do not hear about this in the news, even when it is literal genocide we are committing against these people, and it has been throughout the history of our country. 

Black people in this country face racism throughout the institutions that are catered towards associating  lighter skin color with success and safety, when skin color has nothing to do with a person’s worth or dignity.  If Black communities are suffering, would it not make sense for the people who caused the suffering and poverty and overcrowding and lack of resources to take responsibility? I watched a Ted Talk, and in it the deliverer said that genocide of people is complete when the oppressor has caused the oppressed to believe that it is them who put themselves into the oppression and are responsible for their place in the world. I think this fits for  the world we live in with the oppressors being the rich and fortunate, and the oppressed being everyone else. Different degrees of oppression are seen throughout the world and throughout the United States, and it seems like so many people want to end it, but the people who actually have the power to do so, don’t.

This reaction essay shows some vexation at the injustices and lack of empathy in our society. This outrage provoked by violations of basic principles of ethics and morals can be a fuel to someone who wants to contribute to making the situation better. Also, when the disgust with the failings are felt this deeply, a person might be motivated to try to make substantial and radical changes, remaining discontent with incremental steps. But what provoked this essay was a reaction to a progressive legislative achievement, a removal of state coercive power from intervening into the relationships between women and their physicians. Sometimes the positive changes just highlight how primitive and dehumanizing the normal state of affairs is.