Men never wanted you to be this powerful.

My most salient point is not particularly brilliant: You already know it.

It was second year university and I was living in a campus apartment with four girlfriends. We were on a co-ed floor with three other apartments filled largely with friends from the previous year, and we spent many of our weekend evenings with an open door party policy.

One night, deep into a study evening and well into the year, the friend I was closest with was worried she might be pregnant. I barely remember the details and honestly, I bet she wouldn’t if I asked her today. We were 20 and there was nothing crazy about the circumstances that lead to this.

Of course it takes two to get into this situation, but that doesn’t materially have to be the guy’s problem. In fact, in instances like this, it probably rarely is. We looked up pharmacies and made some calls, eventually finding a 24-hour one off campus.

Even if finding suitable pharmaceutical storefronts on the internet wasn’t as easy as it is today, there was a such thing as Plan B back then. We didn’t have much in the way of money or resources, we certainly did not have a vehicle, but we had bus passes.

So two very young women got onto the number four bus and took the 40-minute ride to the Kitsilano pharmacy that would eventually provide the medication that would halt impregnation from ever occurring, if it was even going to.

And that is how powerful patriarchy doesn’t want women to be.

Patriarchy doesn’t want girls and women to have their own human perspectives on sexual encounters that don’t mean a lot. Yet cis het men do want girls and women who will fuck them casually to magically appear, but they want them to somehow materialize out of thin air and disappear from existence after.

Patriarchy doesn’t want girls and women to feel a sense of control or entitlement over the “consequences” of their sexual decisions – no matter the circumstances. Yet cis het men do want girls and women to leave them unburdened of any consequences and of course to never, ever “trap” them.

Patriarchy doesn’t want girls and women to feel empowered by their sexual experiences or make men feel like footnote in their own valid journey of life. Yet cis het men do want girls and women to give them the freedom to come and go as they please without expectations or accountability.

You see, patriarchy doesn’t even want two “broke” women in college, emboldened only with a sense of choice and a bus pass, to take a long, inconvenient bus ride to prevent an unwanted pregnancy from even happening.

That is too powerful. And whether you want to believe it or not, that is what we are up against.

They said Roe couldn’t be overturned. Most often I heard that characterized as an utterly preposterous idea. So much so that Obama declared the act of guaranteeing women their reproductive rights as, simply not a priority.

I don’t think I need to say this for the audience reading, but setting aside any personal feelings one may have about abortion, which I am honestly completely sympathetic to, abortion is health care. You don’t have to choose it – that’s kind of the point – but there may come a time you need it to live.

What you may not realize is that this is all very much on the table here in Canada, too.

In this increasingly chaotic world, one where so many Canadians pride themselves on a standard that is realistically being measured against the most violent, racist and dangerous nation that has ever graced the surface of this Earth, we fall prey to becoming complacent.

It was, after all, complacency – namely the belief in certain “checks and balances” and, if you can follow, supremacy and exceptionalism – that created the environment that overturned Roe.

If you’re a Canadian and you’re reading this, I want you to take this away as my most salient point, and it’s not particularly brilliant. You already know it: What politicians say, and what they do, are often entirely different things. Reproductive rights are at risk in this country too.

Don’t. Take. My. Word. For. It. I’m just some angry feminist bitch yapping on the internet. Here is a list of relevant bills and the MPs who voted either pro or anti-choice on them.

Look at who overwhelmingly votes against your rights – and perhaps more importantly, your daughters’.