We Feel Grief. We Feel Fury.

I’ve been watching the news with a sick feeling, almost nausea. A woman in Georgia, Adriana Smith, is being forced to carry a pregnancy to term despite being brain dead. The horror is palpable. I cannot fathom what her family is experiencing, this torture. It is enough to provoke rage in so many of us, myself included. I feel grief. I feel fury.

I have written about my beliefs on abortion once here before, but since then I have only grown angrier about the attempts to push women into a reality where we have no control over our bodies or lives. This case, with Adriana Smith’s family, has weighed heavily on so many of us; this is injustice. And it is so egregious that I am sort of left spinning my shallow words, words that do not summon the outrage. Women are not incubators, and we will always fight back, refuse to know our place, refuse to be silenced, refused to be stripped of our humanity.

Anger is such a productive emotion. I learned this from activist friends. It is okay, even necessary, to feel grief, but that must be accompanied by the will to do something to change it, to reject the injustice wholesale. What can one person do? Can we pace back and forth, chewing our nails? Do we take to the streets? Do we call our representatives? Or do we feel hot, sticky tears clumping in our eyes? I want to propose that we feel everything and that we do not shutter any of that grief, any of that fury, but that we allow it to blossom deep in the core of our humanity, let it bloom like a flower crawling up our throats. We must let every woman and every family — and Adriana Smith’s family — know that they are not alone in the fight for freedom.

Horror. Shock. Let those emotions sit with us. But let those slough away and be replaced with the need and will for action. For Adriana. Her name must be repeated. Adriana, Adriana, Adriana.

And then hope. I believe that this is a period of history that will be rectified. I believe that women have a bright future ahead of us. I know that this does not lessen the pain that Adriana Smith’s family is going through, but I have to believe in the good of humankind, even in the face of these sorts of barbaric laws. We matter. She matters.

Stand together, friends.