Victoria Brownworth Profile picture
May 24, 2018 15 tweets 9 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
We really need to talk more about #abortion as an option for women.
It's hard to say this and hard to hear it for many, but just because you discover you are pregnant doesn't mean you must carry that pregnancy to term. Your decision will last the rest of your life--and the rest of the life of any child you decide to carry to term.
#abortion
And no, I am not advocating #abortion.
I'm advocating thinking about parenthood & all it entails.
Because once you have a child, you can't just walk away from that life.
And women/girls are talked into maintaining pregnancies every day.
More discussion would change that.
On May 22, Trump employed a #gagrule that would prevent and criminalize discourse on #abortion. That's an end-run around #RoevWade.

Even other women want to shut down this conversation.
We're told to say #ReproRights instead of #abortion.
We're asked, accusatorily, "What about #BirthControl?!"

HOW DO WOMEN GET BC WITHOUT #HEALTHCARE PAYING FOR IT?

Birth control isn't just expensive, it requires a doctor.
Others ask: "What about the morning after pill?"

Well--@POTUS44 nixed the availability of that. Obama said he didn't want it on the shelves next to "band aids and bubblegum" and directed his Sect of Health, Kathleen Sebelius to contravene the #FDA.
nyti.ms/2J3GWzi
Even our self-declared feminist allies make bad decisions for women.
Obama's said he didn't want his daughters making these decisions without him and Michelle.

Except not every girl has the Obamas as parents and sometimes it's the male head of household who impregnated the girl.
Sometimes the healthiest choice for a woman is #abortion.
And right now, in most places in America, abortion is more accessible than is #birthcontrol.
That's a pretty damning reality.
Being #prochoice means working toward women/girls being "allowed" control over their own bodies.
You need ID and to ask the pharmacist for #PlanB from behind the counter.
And you need money.
And you need to know Plan B even exists.
The demands on women/girls to access their own reproductive autonomy are immense.
We need to talk about this--not shut it all down.
#abortion
I had no intention of talking about this. I was watching a TV show in which a woman derailed her entire life to have a baby of a man she wasn't involved with past the initial sex.
She didn't want a baby, but decided she had to.
This isn't the way to start your family.
#abortion
I'm going to end this thread with a surprise: I am personally opposed to #abortion. When I was raped a few years ago I prayed I wouldn't get pregnant (or #HIV or Hepatitis or #Herpes), because I couldn't have an abortion.

But my feminism isn't about me--it's about women & girls.
That's what #prochoice means: Knowing that there are women who will need something and you want it to be available to them even if you would never access it yourself.

So work for that. Work for reproductive freedom, which is the basis of all female autonomy.
Compulsory #pregnancy has derailed the lives of women & girls for millennia & continues to do so globally. There's a whole other thread to write here about how pregnancy kills girls in developing nations & the US South, but that's for another time.

For now: talk about #abortion.
Oh and on May 25 Ireland votes to #repealthe8th and hopefully will finally cease to allow the Church (my Catholic Church) control women's bodies and will legalize #abortion.

Support this by tweeting about it. Women/girls ARE dying because abortion is illegal there.
#Together4Yes
A few women have told me that "you can just order Plan B online & have it delivered," which totally misses class/economics of unwanted pregnancy.
#PlannedParenthood lays out the expense: It's between $40-$60. And may not work & has a tiny window for use.
plannedparenthood.org/learn/morning-…

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More from @VABVOX

Oct 9, 2018
I don't think men really understand how different it is to be a woman out in the world and how quickly things can turn dangerous.
When I was living in New Orleans, I was walking home from work one night. It was fall--dark early & foggy.
A man came out of the fog toward me.
1/
He said hi, I said hi.
As he started to pass me, he asked me if I had the time.
I looked at my watch, looked up, he had a gun pointed at me.
He hit me so fast I wasn't able to steel myself.
I fell to the ground.
He said, "I could rape you right now, but I don't have time."
2/
He wanted my money.
I had the grocery money for the entire house (I lived with 3 other people) in my purse.
He took it and disappeared into the fog.
The whole thing was maybe ten minutes, start to finish.
I was shaking so hard I could hardly get up.
My head was bleeding.
3/
Read 20 tweets
Oct 4, 2018
The majority of the working class in America is women and POC.
And white men as a group haven't voted majority Democrat since 1964--they stopped after LBJ signed the the #VRA.
Flip the narrative and start listening to the ACTUAL working class--the rest of us.
Stop centering white men for everything.
Stop claiming only white men can save us from the damage white men did to us.
Women are the working class--my investigation here:

damemagazine.com/2018/04/12/wom…
.@matthewstoller is very worried about white men, but it's really women of all races who are facing the worst effects of economic and social stresses.
My investigation here:
damemagazine.com/2018/05/10/why…
Read 5 tweets
Oct 2, 2018
The relentlessness of passing over superb women with strong credentials & election histories in favor of whatever man is a headline at a moment is exhausting.

Two months ago it was Avenatti. Now it's O'Rourke.

Bypassing the majority of Americans--women--is a national disgrace.
O'Rourke is fine. He is not, Harris, Gillibrand or Klobuchar.

▪Gillibrand is Congress' leader on women's rights & sexual assault victims.
▪Harris set NN2018 on fire with her speeches reclaiming identity politics.
▪ Klobuchar highlighted #Kavanaugh's unfitness for SCOTUS.
Americans MUST stop looking past women to find some man, any man to supplant them.

It took THIRTY YEARS of incredibly hard work for @HillaryClinton to get to run for POTUS. The rules for women are so different. No one sees a woman give a single speech and says "president!"
Read 16 tweets
Oct 1, 2018
I lived in NOLA right after college.
I drank most every day, as did everyone I knew.
We were all in the domestic Peace Corps, all in our early 20s, all hardworking activists with stressful work.
We drank too much at Mardi Gras, New Year's.
It's absurd to claim #Kavanaugh didn't.
Those of us who've had alcoholics in our lives--like Klobuchar--tend to be careful about alcohol because we've been damaged by the drunks in our lives. I'm a control freak, so never liked being drunk, but lots of my friends did. What IS true, is most 20somethings drink to excess.
This new tack from the #GOP to dismiss #Kavanaugh's alcoholic drinking--& I am not saying he was/is an alcoholic, but he certainly drank like one--is just wrong. It undermines their own credibility and ignores reality: statistically the vast majority of teens/20s get drunk OFTEN.
Read 6 tweets
Sep 29, 2018
Let's talk about sex, #Kavanaugh & Venn diagram overlap of male entitlement.

I've written a lot about sex in various contexts. In the late 80s/early 90s I also gave safe sex workshops back when folks my age were dying 24/7 from #AIDS. My 1st book was on juvenile prostitution.
1/
Most of us know consensual and non-consensual sex differ. The entirety of #Kavanaugh's defense and his defenders' outrage is predicated on the presumption that no teenaged boy knows what consent is.

THEY. KNOW.

Some, like their adult counterparts, don't care.

This is key.
2/
Since #MeToo we've seen egregious serial rapists like #BillCosby and #HarveyWeinstein exposed & attempts made to prosecute them.

But there are "lesser" sexual assaults we've given a lighter hand to: Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Mark Halperin, Louis CK--too many to list.
3/
Read 28 tweets
Sep 27, 2018
I gotta tell you, folks, I have been so sick for the past 2wks, I have really been scared.

Sept 22 House GOP passed their new cuts to Social Security Medicaid and Medicare out of committee. $1.2T in cuts.

That's the safety net.

I've always hoped I could fall there. No more.
I had to call my bestie today to have her come up and stay with me while The Wife is teaching.

Even with the oxygen, hard to breathe.

I had to cancel interviews for tomorrow, a radio appearance for Friday.

Chronic illness like #cancer is incapacitating at times.
We need to do better for sick and #disabled Americans.

It is so hard to work and be sick.

Never getting better sick.
Read 4 tweets

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