Abortion Vacation

I was in France the other week, visiting family. It was a lovely and long-overdue trip, although it could be argued that any vacation to the South of France will be both lovely and long-overdue by default. But in addition to hanging out with my awesome family and sleeping above a cookie bakery, one aspect of the trip that I appreciated the most was not thinking, writing, or even talking that much about abortion for six days.

Don't get me wrong - I love, love, love what I do. Even though it pays nothing and causes polite conversation to come to a screeching halt, I can't imagine not being involved in the pro-choice movement. But the past few months have been dragging me down - we've got the Talking Fetus of Ohio, South Dakota deciding that women have to seek pre-abortion counseling from crisis pregnancy clinics, for fuck's sake, Nebraska's blatant rejection of both science and women's autonomy, and just today, Arizona taking the mind-twistingly insane stance that medical abortion pills qualify as surgery. As someone that has had six operations, I feel really frickin' confident saying no, they don't.

So, yeah, it was nice to take a break. I didn't mean for it to be such a total break, though. As per usual, I had about a thousand and one ideas swirling around in my head for abortion-related articles I'd like to hammer out, and I actually thought that the seven-hour flight would be a perfect chance to get some outlining done. But thanks to the wonder that is Air France's in-seat individual movie screen with a ton of entertainment options, all I got done was watching a season one Mad Men episode and a lot of mindless romantic comedies. And somehow after that, the days just sped by and before I knew it I was meandering through Dulles Airport, wondering just how many times I'd get my passport checked before the exit.

But now it's time to get my butt in gear and pick up right where I left off. Because clearly, there's no shortage of important work to be done. Which is why I'm really looking forward to attending the Stand Up for Women's Health Rally at the U.S. Capitol on April 7. Check out Planned Parenthood's website for more information!