
1. abortion—yay or nay?
Had the misfortune of overhearing a coversation about
abortion this morning while commuting on the ferry. It was between an old man
and a 30-something mom. When they first sat down they were friendly. It didn’t
get weird until half-way to the City. This is how conversations can
get—one word is said and suddenly the vibe is really black really fast and comes out of nowhere.
His take was Make Abortion Illegal. The woman’s take was, It’s my body, I Make the Decision. To
that she added, “I don’t tell you what to do with your penis.”
Ugh, penis. Who wants to think about an old man's penis?
Imagine the ferry. It’s a tight fit in there for all the
commuters. Seats are squished together, it’s an intimate affair, you can’t
easily get up, and you certainly can’t move because every single seat is taken
every single morning. I was stuck. I held my breath.
Then the man got ugly. “Imagine all the fetuses that have
ever been aborted piled up together in a room...Isn’t that a horrible image?”
This is when I’d had enough, COME ON NOW!!!
He assaulted all the women around him with
his vision. The mom paused and asked him about cases of rape.
“Well, that’s the standard go-to question.”
She was quiet.
And gross-out manipulation is a standard course of
action for BULLIES.
I congratulated the woman in my mind. She won the argument by not reacting to his lame tactic. To everyone else I'd like to say: People, wise up and stay quiet about your abortion ideas when on a commuter ferry early in the morning, surrounded by women. If you can't be trusted to have tact, then use visual cues. This is Northern California. We're fucking civilized here.