Our flag barely visible, a red lit hand blocking the way, barricades up, the Supreme Court now takes a right away from American women, and from all of us. They say there is no right to privacy written into the Constitution. Can there be freedom without there also being privacy? The word woman is not in the Consitution either. One of these court characters even declares private sexual behavior, contraception and who you can marry now in his sights. This is an attack on freedom.

I am personally opposed to abortion, I think. As a man I will never have to make that decision for real. I don't know what I would do as a woman confronted by very hard circumstance or health issues. I know it is not my right to tell a woman what she can do with her own body. My photograph has been interpretively edited. The Red light is real, the building is real, the darkness is what I feel right now.

Stephen Johnson
Human, Planet Earth. Citizen, United States of America.

6/26/22

The emotional darkness just continues to deepen as the days pass since Roe was overturned on Friday. There have been so many stories told of forced pregnancies altering women’s lives and dreams forever–stories of rape, incest and butchered back alley abortions. Despite the biological reality of only the woman becoming pregnant from sex, omnipresent is the man impregnating her. Even in the best of consensual circumstances, sexual pleasure holds the possibility of huge consequence for the woman. Men do not suffer those consequences in the same way, even if dedicated partners. There is no role for men in deciding another human's pregnancy. Except the father, whose views still must ultimately yield to the pregnant woman whose body will be forced to undergo huge change, lifelong emotional impact and likely lifelong responsibility.

Now there are efforts in play to monitor women's online activity, intercept mail, incentivize friends, family and bounty hunters to turn in women seeking to terminate a pregnancy growing inside her own body. Make no mistake, this allows state governments to prosecute a woman for murder if she gets an abortion. This reeks of disgusting, tyrannical government intrusion. It is certainly is the opposite of liberty and freedom. Once we start crossing the line of imposing particular religious beliefs onto citizens bodies and bedrooms, we must know we are going down a path of tyranny.

Stephen Johnson
Human, Planet Earth. Citizen, United States of America.

6/27/22

How does an embryo become a human? By the love, nurturing, good health, total bodily commitment, very real health risks, and consent of the of the host.

Human eggs release and pass every month, some are interrupted by love, perhaps by violence, by accident. Part of the liberation of our species from the evolutionary imperative of reproduction is the freedom to make the choice to serve as that host, or not.

Sex is not solely about reproduction, despite some religious doctrines. It is about love, closeness, pleasure, and the fulfillment of deep human needs. At its worst it is about subjugation, violence and control. To legislate that every impregnated woman must give birth is dark government control and bodily tyranny.