Reply #16: You're going to have to. Because it's not just YOUR RIGHT to have the

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last word over what happens to YOUR body, it may very well also be YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE.

Even now, there ARE people, especially those who like to get their news from Pox and listen to limbaugh on the radio who are convinced that this country veered off onto the wrong track when women won the right to vote. I saw a thread here on DU, just a few hours ago, about that very thing - repealing women's right to vote.

BELIEVE ME, those rights we protested for and rallied and marched and did hunger strikes and (some of us who) got arrested and were reviled and belittled and sneered and smirked at, those rights are in SERIOUS jeopardy. They are on the critical list at the moment, with everyone who claims they're so "right to life" chomping at the bit to pull the plug.

You would think men, and some women, too, would have progressed beyond that, wouldn't you? That we've come so far and made such progress toward enlightenment, and that this had all been settled, wouldn't you? Well, it isn't. NONE OF IT. And now that circumstances and republi-CON "victories" in the polls have thrown a lot of big, meaty, juicy bones to the Xtians and other disciples of intolerance and other assorted Great Thirteenth-Century Minds of Our Time, these extremists feel they're owed, bigtime, because they did indeed help push these people into power. And now they want their pound of flesh. OUR flesh. The republi-CONS who are nervous about this deserve to be. These assholes are gonna be calling in their markers and their favors and everything else they think they're owed now, and IF YOU DON'T FIGHT, you better be ready to like wearing a Tali-born-again version of the burqa. Because IF YOU DON'T FIGHT, that's where we're headed.

For me, it's kind of a moot point. I'm now technically past the point of child-bearing age. BUT MY DAUGHTER ISN'T. And thank GOD, she's never been complacent. But surprisingly, I still have plenty of women friends who were just rock-solid SURE that Roe V Wade wasn't gonna be touched. "Awwww, it's NOT gonna HAPPEN" they'd say, so smugly, while they asserted that Clinton was the death of America because he lied about sex, and the Democrats were this and that and the other thing (never realizing that it's only a handful of Democrats who stand in the way between these same women and the fucking DARK AGES. "Awww... NOT gonna happen. It's NOT gonna happen. WON'T happen." That's all I heard. And all I could say was "oh YEAH? You SURE ABOUT THAT? Do you know who these people are, who backs them, and who gives them money?" "Naaaa... NOT gonna happen."

Now, they're smirking out of the other sides of their mouths because it damn well MAY happen. If we don't get a Democratic majority at least in the House of Reps in November, I daresay it WILL. You just watch South Dakota. You watch Mississippi. You watch Missouri. All the dominoes are ready to fall.

I hope to GOD it's not too late, but our side has been asleep at the switch for far too long, and NO ONE remained vigilant. And you know what happens when you dispense with the watchdogs and let your security people go and don't bother to keep somebody stationed up in the crow's nest. The Dark Side will survive - to fight again. COUNT ON IT.

As the battle-scarred wizard "Mad-Eye Moody" repeatedly warned his young students in the Harry Potter saga - "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!!" The bad guys aren't beat, even after you're sure they are.

I'm glad you woke up. I'm grateful that you did, not to mention RELIEVED! I just hope it's not too late. It was hard, trying to change things back then. Now, unfortunately, some of you and your sisters AND OUR DAUGHTERS are going to have to go through that anguish all over again.

I apologize for coming off sounding like a scold here. I take this part of it WAY too seriously. I'm one of those litmus test voters who decides EVERYTHING based on where the candidate stands on the choice issue. The Pennsylvania senate race this time presents a challenge because the guy most likely to get that ASS santorum out of there is anti-choice. But santorum ABSOLUTELY has to go. HAS TO.