as often as i rail against the appalling record on women’s rights by the u.s. and u.k. government, there are times when i am confronted with just how much worse it really can be. when i realise how grateful i am that a capricious and random stroke of luck determined my citizenship in a modern, westernised, developed country.

because i could have been born in nicaragua, where women’s lives are considered so expendable that they are allowed to die rather than have access to an abortion.. their real, actual lives as daughters/mothers/wives/sisters are less important than the potential (yet dependent) life of a fetus which may kill her. women are so often on the very lowest rung of society’s ladder – and now, in nicaragua, they come even lower than a fetus which has yet to be even a baby. how many women will this government kill through deliberate medical neglect? women have been relegated to the role of vessel – their lives are of no consequence if they have a risky or dangerous pregnancy.

what should be our greatest source of strength – the ability to bring life into the world – instead becomes our potential death sentence. it’s abhorrently misogynistic – and sadly, not the least bit surprising. because on the last rung of the ladder, who ever notices when you finally fall off?

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nicaragua, abortion, women's rights