My body in space

Choice, clickbait, breathing

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Notes

Iowa abortion bans: AP has a good summary of the current situation in Iowa. Both bans seek to prevent women from having abortions after 6 weeks – before many women know they are pregnant. The court’s temporary block on the law was in response to a lawsuit brought in part by the Emma Goldman Clinic in Iowa City. (In the process of writing this bulletin, I also spent some time reading about Emma Goldman and Anarchism, including: UC Berkeley Library’s info on Emma Goldman’s life in their online archive and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s very readable overview of the many differing, not to say anarchic, threads of anarchist theory.)

My second pregnancy failed: That is to say, there was no heartbeat detected when I had my first OB visit, around 8-9 weeks. Although I knew I was pregnant several weeks before that, from both a home pregnancy test and recognizing the way my body felt, many obstetricians don’t even schedule a first visit before 8-9 weeks. 

Undue burden: I don’t know why I didn’t complain about this doctor and report this awful question. In the immediate moment, I couldn’t quite process what was happening – that this man, this total stranger, felt it was fine to judge me in this way; the anger came later. 

Kobayashi Maru bus: Spotted on S. 2nd Street in my hometown, Ames, Iowa. In Star Trek lore, Kobayashi Maru is shorthand for a training test that involved a no-win situation – only Captain Kirk beat the test, by reprogramming it. As a young woman in the 1990’s, I often felt that aspects of being a woman were a no-win situation – if I talked about the sexual harassment I experienced, many people (even well-intentioned ones) would respond dismissively, but not talking about it was accepting it as unchangeable. Props to the many women who have been changing this conversation in the 21st century. 

How does this make money: I googled some of the tiny business names discreetly tucked into the bottom left hand corners of these ads, but I never clicked, and I never did figure out the business model, although my guess is fake sites participating in ad networks. If you have seen these ads and have more info, please leave a comment! They have disappeared again for me and I wonder if they really existed.

I went swimming anyway: While I was in Iowa this summer, I also discovered that I could swim a kilometer or more almost every day at the local pool. This was totally unexpected and indescribably joyful – being in the moment with my body, feeling strong and powerful in a way I hadn’t in a long time, even just the feel of the water on my skin and breathing hard. Is there something that gives you this experience? Please let me know!

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