Today is Blog for Choice Day. It’s today not as some arbitrary decision, but because January 22 is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Today it’s 34 35 years since the Supreme Court first handed down one of their most momentous decisions, and stirred up a whole fucking hornet’s nest that’s lasted ever since then. It’s one of the most polarizing issues in American politics, and although it’s not generally acknowledged, abortion is one of the nexus points for America; it speaks not only to our attitudes about sex, but about class and race. The battles over public funding of abortion have little, if anything, to do with upper-class women. It is a battle that takes place very explicitly over the bodies of poor women. This is a simple equation: the more money you have, the more likely you are to be able to go to a private physician and quietly get an abortion without having to march past protesters in front of a free clinic. This isn’t a truth that’s only arisen in the last 35 years. The significance of Roe v. Wade isn’t that it made abortion legal; it’s that it gave poorer women the option that had always been available to wealthy women. It equalized the choice. [Read more…]