Notes from a bitch…because justice demands it…

The health care reform process has been brutal.
For months I’ve joined activists and volunteers who have been working to make sure women are not left with less reproductive health care coverage after health care reform that we currently have.
For months I’ve watched anti-choice language work its way into the House version of the health care reform bill and then the Nelson compromise insert the likelihood of regional disparities in coverage and funding bans into the Senate version of the bill.
Then there was that Senate election last week in Massachusetts that threw health care reform into chaos.
Yeah, it’s been brutal as hell…but they call this shit a struggle for a reason.
I spent last week fighting a serious case of the legislative blahs, but today I’m refueling on the empowerment I find in the justice behind reproductive justice work.
I don’t just believe that all of us should have coverage for and access to the full range of reproductive health care services.
I know that all of us have the right to have coverage for and access to the full range of reproductive health care services.

Knowing that one true thing…that there is justice at the root of this movement and that the pursuit of justice through this movement is crucial to our success…knowing that truth is the foundation on which everything else is built.
And it is empowering…it’s like super food for the activist soul.
All of us have the right to have coverage for and access to the full range of reproductive health care services.
Not just rich people…or folks who happen to live in a certain state…or those who are able to gather up funds from supportive family and friends…or people with health care coverage through one of those big companies that gives real coverage to all employees even if they happen to work in one of the branch offices located in an unfortunate anti-choice state.
All of us…and that means transgender people, lesbian and bi-sexual and gay and queer people…people of color…disabled people…people who are blessed with multiple identities (wink)…women who are serving in the military and the women who have served…undocumented people…incarcerated people…sex workers and all the other people I failed to mention.
All of us.
Justice demands it.
All of us.
No legislation or reform can or will deny the truth of that.
All of us.
And when I think of the power of that truth I get so fired up that I want to shoot my fist up in the air and say it loud…
Health care is a right…it’s her right and his right and their right and my right.
A right, damn it!
For all of us.
We may not be able to predict the future of the current health care reform legislation…
…but I can guarantee that this struggle shall continue.
Because I know that justice demands it and no legislation or reform can deny the truth of that.
Pause…consider…continue.
So, the legislative process will just have to catch the hell up.
Blink.