Open Book: No Country For Women

In A Post-Roe World, That Feeling Is Called Defeat

by Anya Nitczynski

For the GPHN

What good will it do to write about how useless you feel? What fruits could possibly come from the labor of protesting a decision I have no control over? How has the world kept turning through centuries of injustice, prejudice, and cruelty?

These are all questions I have mulled over within myself, with friends, and with family for years. I didn’t start asking these questions when Roe v. Wade was overturned, and I doubt I will ever stop asking.

I don’t have an extra layer of nuance to add to the reproductive rights conversation. I don’t have a new take or opinion that nobody has heard before. My pointing out a problem does not mean I have a solution to offer. I do not have a clear view of what to do.

When the court decision officially came out, I spoke to a friend. We confided in each other that we knew we were supposed to be angry — and surely we would become angry soon — but at the moment, we just felt defeated. We talked for hours at how failed we feel by this country as young people, as women, and as humans. The truth is, we live in Colorado. We both have access to abortion services, if we needed it. Yet here, and elsewhere, women of color have been systematically denied necessary healthcare for decades. This country continues to fail marginalized groups and never acknowledge the truth behind these actions. This is not a talking point or a simple political debate. It is bigger, more polarized, and unequivocally challenging to navigate.

I was in class shortly after the draft decision was leaked, and someone said it had been a rough week for women. A cisgender man responded that it had been a rough week for everybody. The youth and naivety of men in my generation becomes very obvious when abortion comes up in conversation. No matter how woke or educated or politically correct they are, their thoughts on this topic are altogether unwelcome right now. They will never understand. Men are not policed like we are.

So I don’t have a lot to add on to what other women are saying about this decision. But I can say that my generation does not see representation of ourselves in the U.S. Supreme Court that is made up of nine Justices over 50 years old. We do not see representations of ourselves in politicians or in the electoral college.

We feel wronged, and we feel hopeless. But we are not surprised.

Anya Nitczynski is a rising sophomore at Denver School of the Arts. Her column appears monthly in these pages.