Jerry Della Femina
THIS IS FOR… (6/28/22)
This is for the 17-year-old girl who suddenly finds out she’s pregnant and can’t tell her parents and has nowhere to turn…
This is for the 39-year-old woman who has six children and can’t afford to feed another child…
This is for the unmarried 25-year-old struggling to survive every day who can’t imagine bringing a child into her dark, lonely world…
This is for every woman who finds she is pregnant and can’t imagine bringing a child into her world now. In five years, maybe, but please God not now…
This is for every woman who wants to take back control of her own body…
Thanks to the Trump Supreme Court, this has been a horrible week. The score is Guns 1, Women 0.
The beautiful and very talented Lorraine Bracco summed up this horrible week when she posted these words, dripping with irony:
“I will never forget that abortions were banned before AR-15s.”
I blame the disgusting politicians who will ignore the safety of a 10-year-old boy or girl at school, but will fight to save a 10-week-old embryo in a stranger’s body.
For years I’ve angered my friends because my idea of a balanced government is one where we have a conservative president (Reagan, Eisenhower, etc.) and a very liberal Supreme Court (think Earl Warren, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, William O. Douglas, or even a smart middle-of-the road centrist justice like Sandra Day O’Connor).
We don’t have that now.
We have a Supreme Court that’s being run by angry, mean Justice Clarence Thomas, who is still pissed off that he didn’t get Anita Hill into bed.
Justice Sullen Samuel Alito.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who always looks like he’s thirsty for another beer. He’s a Trump pick.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, another Trump selection.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a professional Catholic, still another Trump pick.
Welcome to occupied America.
We’re the majority and we’re losing.
Let us fight back.
If abortion has been left to the states, let us fight for the millions of women whose only sin was being pregnant in the wrong state.
This is from a column I wrote a few months ago when the word went out that Roe was going to be overturned. It’s a good idea and if you have a better idea, let’s hear it. I say: Whatever it takes.
Here’s an idea that may help the thousands of women should they need to get an abortion.
Those women who live in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, California don’t have to worry. Nothing will change.
But what about the women who live in Tulsa, Oklahoma; Houston, Texas; St. Joseph, Missouri or any one of the other 40 or so states in the middle of the country?
The answer is buses. They will be called Women’s Freedom Buses.
We will need about 80 buses to travel daily to cities where abortion is not allowed and pick up women and take them to a city where it is allowed.
This must be a private venture.
We don’t need politicians to muck this up like they are doing now.
Besides, this can’t be paid for with tax dollars. That wouldn’t be fair to the pro-lifers.
So, we will need millions of dollars from people who believe in pro-choice.
I’m talking about Jeff Bezos dollars, Elon Musk dollars, Bill Gates dollars, etc. etc.
Planned Parenthood can be our point people.
There will be ads urging women to call and find out when the Women’s Freedom Bus will be coming to their town.
Here’s how it will work:
A bus will travel to a city, let’s say St. Louis.
The word will go out to every doctor in town to tell their patients who need the service.
The word will go out to everyone on the internet.
The Women’s Freedom Bus will be waiting.
The bus will take a woman, in this case, just a few miles to Illinois, where choice is honored.
There is precedent. Last week CBS Sunday Morning ran a story about how last year the Planned Parenthood chapter in St. Louis, where abortion is almost totally outlawed, sent 3,000 women to nearby Illinois for a safe, successful procedure.
The buses will travel to every city in the middle of the country and pick up people every week.
They will be taken, for free, to a hospital in another city in another state where choice is honored.
It will be a great hospital, and everything will be free.
It’s going to take millions of donated dollars.
But if you believe in freedom, like I do, it will be worth it.
Here’s another area where Joe Biden and all the Democrats in Washington can help us.
It’s the abortion pill.
Those states that are outlawing abortion are trying to outlaw the abortion pill.
It’s time for Joe Biden to declare a Public Health Emergency, thus making it impossible for states to put a physician in jail for prescribing the abortion pill, which is safe and approved by the FDA.
Or, better still, through Planned Parenthood, giving women in need the names of doctors in states that are pro-choice who will write prescriptions for the abortion pill.
This will make it possible for a doctor’s prescription to be mailed through Washington and sent for a women to pick up her pills from a United States Post Office in any state of the union.
We must never give up.
Every woman’s life depends on this.
-If you wish to comment on “Jerry’s Ink” please send your message to jerry@dfjp.com