This is where the story starts, in this threadbare room. The walls are exploding. The windows have turned into telescopes. Moons and stars are magnified in this room. The sun hangs over the mantlepiece. I stretch out my hand and reach the corners of the world. The world is bundled up in this room. Beyond the door, where the river is, where the roads are, we shall be. We can only take the world with us when we go and sling the sun under your arm. Hurry now, it's getting late. I don't know if this is a happy ending but here we are let loose in open fields.

-- Jeanette Winterson, Written on the Body

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The former plaintiff known as "Jane Roe" [Norma McCorvey] in the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized abortion sought to have the case overturned in a motion filed Tuesday that asks the courts to consider new evidence that abortion hurts women.
...
"We're getting our babies back," a jubilant McCorvey said... McCorvey and her attorneys asked the federal court to consider more than 5,400 pages of evidence, including 1,000 affidavits from women who say they regret their abortions.

If I regret my abortion (or my breast augmentation or my tubal ligation or my piercings for that matter), can I find 1,000 others who regret the same (out of millions who may or may not) and have the procedure severely limited - based on my experience of what merits 'exception' and what does not - or even outlawed? The NYTimes can use the possessive - "their abortions" - because of our language of self and medicine and mutilation and body. I use "my abortion" the way I use "my rape": as something I have done (or that has been done) with my body, something that I have changed or experienced with same. In this vein, it's interesting that in all existing and former US law regarding pregnancy and abortion, a pregnant woman does not factor into the list of responsible parties. The pages of opinion written in the deciding of the Roe case spell out clearly that it is the status and viability of a fetus which is in question. Woman, once pregnant, is written out completely: her doctor is responsible - and if married, her husband can file malpractice damages if an illegal abortion is performed. The text of R.v.W. and attendant opinions don't apply to me. My name is Host. I won't even begin to comment on "getting our babies back."

(Edit per email. Clarification: I have never had a tubal ligation nor breast augmentation. Don't sound so worried.)



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More Supreme Court watching here. Did I ever tell you about the time my mother was working for the Justice Department and my father came to visit her at work?
Headline:
Long-Haired Hippy Type in Army Surplus Jacket Nearly Clocks William Rehnquist Over the Head with Camera Equipment (Accidentally, of Course); Smartly Dressed Young Paralegal Nearly Dies of Embarassment and Ushers Hippy Type Out the Door. Rehnquist Doesn't Notice.