After Roe
sonnet no. lii
I began this sonnet series as a way to respond to current events in the United States. Last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively overturned Roe V. Wade, which guaranteed a Constitutional right to safe abortions for women. I have written sonnets about this before, and I thought I’d share those sonnets again, as well as a P.S.A.
A short preface. I believe that a woman’s body is to be protected by our Constitution, that to not protect it as such makes a woman a second-class citizen. It seems clear to me that this ruling is a step toward criminalizing pregnancy and that women will die, regardless of whether the pregnancy was wanted or not. At the same time I have no anger for those that celebrated the ruling, those that spoke a private prayer of thanks. The demonizing of those ideologically different from me is something we’re being dragged toward by dark forces inside the internet. Without a demon to point to, I cannot be furiously partisan, and so these poems attempt to be both political and human; to lose the human part is to turn the poem into propaganda.
All art is propaganda. But not all propaganda is art. ( ~ George Orwell )
Sonnets 21 & 22
These first two poems were written in September of 2021, when Governor Greg Abbott of Texas signed SB 8, which limited abortion care beyond 6 weeks of pregnancy. I am reminded of a friend who asked on Twitter why men were not speaking out ( on that platform ). These poems were my attempts to do so:
Sonnet 21:
Sonnet 22:
Last, Sonnet 13 (“for all you daddies out there”)
Every woman I have ever met has had a deep-set intuition about their body and what it does or will produce: menstruation, children, milk; similarly, they seem to mentally prepare for how their bodies will undergo the changes of pregnancy. Men are completely careless about their own bodies almost immediately after puberty, and certainly have no fear of any physical change on their part during and after pregnancy.
It is therefore more relevant that I submit, once again, the importance of the vasectomy as a cultural force, to all fathers of two or more children. Because, let’s face it, you’re done giving the world people. Submit to the consequences of child-rearing with a real whammy of a physical sacrifice. Join your partner on the other side of the river.
Sonnet 13:
