What a sad day it is for women.
The ultimate silencing of a woman's voice, a woman's choice.
When the discussion surrounding Roe v Wade being overturned came into the public forum, I found myself quite triggered, and I had a little downslide in terms of mental health. I couldn't quite explain, although I tried when my wife asked me what was weighing on my mind.
Abortion comes with the biggest "what if" you will ever face in your life.
For me, in 2007, it wasn't even a question in my mind, it was a must. When I found out I was pregnant, entirely by chance, having been admitting to hospital for other reasons, my only question for the nurse was "can you do an abortion here?"
And I remember the look on her face, like I was some silly student who had dropped her knickers and not thought through my life choices. It's that flippancy, it's that assumption that makes abortion such a taboo. Let's set aside the pro life, the religion, the bastardised religious zealousness that comes with the territory (forgive the pun) - if's not god's judgement that brings about the friction, it's other people's opinions on someone elses body, mind, circumstance, that has no place in society.
If I had not had the right to make my own choice, and take ownership of my own body, after somebody had taken ownership of it for me, and taken my choice from me, if I had had my voice silenced and my freedom of choice taken from me, I would have given birth in 2008 to a child I never asked for, a child I never wanted, a child I believed because of the horror of circumstance, I couldn't love. Those were my feelings and my rights to feel that way.
It would mean that the man who took my body, took my choice, also took my right to live my life on my own terms, in the way I wanted, in the way I planned.
As a second year politics student, I had no intention of having a child at 19, nor did I want one.
As a gay woman, I had no intention of having a child with a random man, not a rapist, not a one night stand, not a cock in sight.
As a woman, I had no intention of having a child at 19 because I had worked for my education and wanted to build my life in the way I had hoped and planned, to go to university, to get a good job, to build a life, find a wife, settle down and live happily ever after.
It is only these days whilst infertility runs rampant through our lives and has taken over our marriage and hopes of procreation that my mind occasionally allows the "what if" question to enter my head.
For every "what if" I have had since 2007, I never thought I would see the day, I would feel grateful for having those moments, for having the choice to have them. That 19 year old me had the freedom to make that informed choice. Backed by doctors, therapy and an operation.
I don't regret it. It was what was right for me at the time. It was right for my body, my mind, my hopes and it shaped who I am.
I don't have qualms over religion despite being brought a good catholic girl. I live my life firm of mind that my choices have concequences of my ownership. Thats true of all my decisions, good and bad.
But to lose the ability to have that choice? To be forced to live with such a penance?
I can hand on heart in 2022 say with all honesty and integrity. If in 2007 I could not have had an abortion to rid myself of the foetus imposed upon me by a rapist, a monster, to live with a constant reminder of the violence and horror of that night.
I would have killed myself. It would have been my life lost with whatever cells I was carrying with me.
Women NEED, DESERVE and MUST have the right to make decisions about their bodies.
Today's decision will lead to deaths, through unsolicited, underhand, opportunistic, dangerous abortions and loss of life of the women who can't live with the choice they've been left with, none.
What next America?
The LGBT+ community best prepare for the overturning of gay marriages, Trumps legacy of hate and ignorance lives on and Joe Biden is still trying to find his balls in Hilarys handbag.
God help us.
