I just want to live my life [View all]

[EnergizedLib]

Going into the year and during the spring, I wasn't following politics a whole lot. I was seeing tweets and planned to Vote Blue in the midterms, like I always do.

Then the leaked draft happened, and I was distraught and chilled by whole thing that I actually had a sleepless night and couldn't focus on anything except for the news when it broke.

Nevertheless, I continued to try trekking on with my job and everything for about the next month-and-a-half.

Then Bruen happened and that was another sleepless night. When I saw the decision tweeted out on Dobbs, I felt a gut punch to the stomach and just haven't felt the same since.

I am a straight, white male. Dobbs doesn't affect me - no wife, daughter or sister. Overturning Obergefell, Griswold, Loving or Lawrence wouldn't directly affect me either.

And yet, I'll do anything to keep those from being overturned and for Roe to be restored.

I really don't get it, and my view and interpretations on the federal vs. state debate is definitely different from people on the other side. In my opinion, why is it a bad thing that the federal government has legislation affirming and protecting individual rights and civil rights, but it's okay for state governments to infringe on those rights? If the smallest minority is the individual, then we need to make sure all individuals have the same rights.

After all, we are the United States of America, with emphasis on United, and if rights vary by state, how United of a country truly are we? I thought we were supposed to be free and have the same basic rights no matter where we went in this country.

The thing I wish others would get that abortion is not a black-and-white issue. It's a lot more than somebody just not being responsible during intercourse. There's the 10-year-old from Ohio, the woman in Wisconsin who bled for 10 days or a woman in Texas who lost liters of blood and was on a breathing machine because she started to miscarry, but the doctors couldn't give an abortion because of the fetus' heartbeat.

Stuff like this angers me, it crushes me. I'm currently in a red state, though originally from a blue one, and I fear what the state legislature is going to do on the topic. It makes me want to not visit other restrictive states, but then again, the state I'm currently in may soon be one with greater restrictions.

I've seen people on Twitter tell others that this is good that it's now up to the states and people can vote on it.

I don't want to have a vote on it. Do you know why? It's none of my business. It's none of my business if two consenting adults marry each other, perform certain sexual acts in the privacy of their own homes, use contraceptives, etc. The only time I want a "vote" on any of those things is if any of them involve me directly.

Is it me, or it completely twisted that people's basic rights, human and individual rights, should be for a vote? The notion that strangers can decide if a woman pregnant by rape can have their medical procedure, or a pastor deciding if gays can marry, or if a Klan member can decide if a white person can marry a black person. Something just doesn't sit with me that a perfectly married heterosexual couple can enjoy the rights and reap the fruits of a marriage while deciding not to afford that to other people.

But yet, Ted Cruz said yesterday Obergefell was wrongly decided, Mike Braun said Loving v. Virginia was wrongly decided.

As a result, I've joined my local Democratic chapter, and am volunteering for somebody to try to get them elected, and am willing to do the same for others in the area.

I'm in my early thirties. I hope I can see a day in my life again where people can have all of these rights - restored, not overturned and I can just focus on myself and my own personal life.

Yet, that's hard for me to do as long as others keep feeling the brunt of Draconian policies.