It’s no secret that this election is very important (lest we desire that America looks like an idiot in front of the rest of the world), but it’s not just the presidential election that is important. The local measures and propositions deserve your attention too, so look at those before you cast your ballot. In California the propositions include: legalizing marijuana, repealing the death penalty and a proposed tobacco tax to fund healthcare. Voting is your chance to affect the world we live in, so yes, your vote matters. However, now let’s return to the national issue: the president (and the issues brought up this election cycle). Mostly I want to talk about Donald Trump and women’s rights: namely his lack of awareness about these issues and why it is imperative that he not get elected in just a few days.

Donald Trump talked about late term abortions at the last debate, and he got it so wrong that it’s really a bit sickening. A lot of the time when male politicians debate women’s rights issues, I feel like screaming because it seems ridiculous that men get to legislate our bodies like they actually know how our bodies work. They have, consistently, dismissed female authority and attempts to make our voices heard. This part of the debate was connected to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that sanctioned abortion. Growing up, I learned that the Roe v. Wade case was a landmark decision that, as a woman, guaranteed me safe access to healthcare, should I ever find myself in a situation that required it. The possibility that it could get overturned scares me, not just because of the direct consequences, but also because of the cultural significance of such an action. How can we say that we’re doing better in the 21st century when we’re going back on things that were so progressive? This all comes back to Donald Trump because he talked about late term abortion in his answer to a debate question, and got it horrifyingly, shockingly wrong. He discussed it as babies getting ripped from their mother’s wombs (a phrase previously only used to describe a C-section in Shakespeare, and let’s not take health advice from an Elizabethan-era play!). Although I, thankfully, have never been in the position to think critically and personally about abortion, not a single fiber of my being would allow me to believe a mother could simply end a pregnancy without thought, much less procure a late term abortion without some serious soul-searching.

When I first heard about this comment at the debate, I cringed and then hoped that would be the end of it. Thankfully it was not; we need to face these awful statements and use them to inform our choices (namely picking a president who actually has women’s rights in mind). One of my friends on Facebook shared multiple stories from women who had late term abortions, and I made myself read through some of them. They were not fun reads, they were not pleasurable in any way, but I feel much more educated and much more certain that we need to make sure women have access to safe, legal healthcare that includes abortions if they are necessary. Particularly late term abortions, because while these can be incredibly difficult to get, they also put more stress (mental and physical) on the parent so they should certainly be safe and legal. Each story I read really struck me because the women had to be so brave and so strong to share that, and I felt devastated simply reading them. Human life is often heartbreaking (I sat still and felt like crying for a full few minutes after I was done reading—and that was with quite a bit of distance between me and the lived experience), and obviously no one wants to lose a child, so to have someone like Trump stand up and spout incorrect facts about their lived experiences must have been excruciating. Really, the point of this whole ranting post has been to say: PLEASE VOTE. No matter what your views are about any of the issues, at least have some views, and my biased addition to that would be: please make them views that give the most people the most choices. Elections really don’t happen that often, so before you vote this time, please read the propositions and really make some choices (you can definitely use an hour to do it, we all know you weren’t going to finish that paper or study for that midterm all evening). Just please vote.