Home sometimes feels very far away.  

On the 3rd May I opened my laptop to view the headlines. I instantly felt like I had been punched in the stomach: the US Supreme Court had voted to overturn Roe v Wade. While this was a leaked court document and not an official opinion, it was basically a done deal. And on the 24th June all my worst fears were confirmed. The US Supreme Court had decided women no longer had a constitutional right to an abortion. 

I have been in the UK for nearly 8 years now. I’m an American woman who has traded cultural familiarity and comforts for a life with my partner in a new land. I am often grateful for the British way of life. Free healthcare, including birth control, is a luxury I have grown accustomed to but have never, and will never, take for granted.  

But these monumental shifts in the American political landscape often leave me reeling. The last time I felt this disoriented was when I was expecting to celebrate the election of the first Madame President and was thrown swiftly off kilter by the actual outcome. I was inconsolable. Alone in a foreign land separated from those who most viscerally understood how I felt. 

In these moments I find myself stumbling through well-intentioned chit chat about the state of affairs and enduring comments on how strange America is. I'm confronted with questions on the very nature of Americans’ political beliefs. As if there was a simple answer. I can’t answer on behalf of a nation, I can only speak for myself and how I feel. 

I am angry. I am frustrated. I am sad. Bitter. Helpless. Pensive. Sickened. And I am holding my breath for what happens next. 

I have been warned of the possibility of the court overturning Roe v Wade for as long as I can remember. It has always been there in the background, haunting American women. A lingering threat warning us not to get too comfortable with our rights. They must be watched over, protected and never ever taken for granted.  

And I never have taken my right to an abortion for granted. Choices about my body and my reproductive health are how second wave feminism has made my life better, easier and freer. Because so many women fought for my reproductive rights, I have been able to live my life the way I choose -- I am happily childless by choice. Because of second wave feminism I am not reduced to, or limited by, my biology. My experience as a childfree woman is a valid choice. 

I also recognise that I have been privileged enough to consistently have had access to the medical care and treatment that enables me to make this choice. But those times when my employment was in peril, and by extension my health insurance, had me on edge. Those uneasy moments of just barely being able to afford to pay for my prescription or get a renewal from my doctor in a timely manner were scary and stressful. 

This won’t stop abortion; it will stop safe abortion.

It is poor and minoritised women who are already feeling the sharpest edges of inequality who are being thrown further into peril. Lack of access to abortion has been the longstanding reality for many women, including those don’t have health insurance, are in low paid jobs, have no paid leave, are in abusive relationships, too scared to confide in family or friends, and so many, many, many more. Those employers offering to fund abortion travel and expenses? Yeah, that’s for full-time, salaried workers who can face telling their boss they need an abortion.  

It’s easy to shrug our shoulders and say, it’s not like that here.  

The world over women continue fighting for reproductive justice. When I first attempted to write this I started to arm myself with stats and facts. Comparing the US and Poland, Ireland and Northern Ireland, etc. But the relative privilege of one woman compared to another isn’t the point. We know who this will hurt more. And whether or not I think I will ever need or want an abortion is not important. The point is we cannot take reproductive rights for granted.  

This isn’t about what’s happening ‘over there’ in a distant land that ultimately doesn’t have anything to do with our own lives. It is about all of us.  

We don’t need to pity the situation of other women and sigh with our own relief. We need to stand in solidarity because as we have learned, we can win our rights and we can lose our rights.  

The court decision can be the death knell of reproductive justice. Or it can be the rallying call for women everywhere to stand up and say hands off our bodies.