Our Bodies

Our Bodies, Our Choice

My mother told me that was the shibboleth. She spoke of a court system and a trial about a woman who wanted something called an abortion. A murder of her unborn child, she explained. Before the District, this was acceptable. Now, only married women could conceive.

Then the District instated the Child License law. There was little protest. Few were brave enough to march. Women and men were beaten at PCC (pro-choice to conceive) rallies. Bullets sprayed, bombs dropped and people died. Even now, we knew the consequences were not worth the risk. Amputations, exile and even death.

As we waited, the number of pro-choice women diminished. Being cut off from alternative media, not just what the District provided, made people question the laws less and less. It became rule that we could not even discuss the possibilities of ownership of our bodies. They were no longer "our bodies". Entitled men in suits had passed down laws impacting what happens in our bodies, only female bodies. Men were exempt and still collected little blue pills for their benefit. For the benefit of society, as they told us. No one argued.

Soon I found myself married, ready to bare children. I stood in line with all the other couples nervously waiting, wringing their hands as the line crawled. Would we get the license, I asked my husband. He continued to stare forward and gently nodded his head as if still in his own thoughts. What was he thinking? Was he in favor of all of this? Conjugating a marriage was forbidden. Did he know what I did? Did he know what I studied? My crimes conceived, planned and committed? Would he stand at the gallows beside me? Or hold out his arm to lose a hand?

As the law became reality, there were still some who went in search of solutions. Groups formed disguised as WDO committees (Women for District Obedience), we plotted. In an abandoned school library, we found text books, now banished, and studied about fertility. Ovulation, uterus, fallopian tubes – all illicit terms. We were only told of menstruation and how often to predict it. Sexual intercourse was punishable, even after marriage. Instructions on conception would come at the arrival of your license approval.

Yet, we knew. We had powerful, fruitful information. Some girls became incredulous and stopped attending the WDO meetings. They were potential informants so those of us still willing, had to move swiftly. I learned of a medicine that would render my husband quite unconscious if mixed in his daily allowance of alcohol. I applied knowledge of my body with the obvious functions of his (after all, non-intercourse relations were still legal). I believe my mother once called forced intercourse rape.

I looked up at my husband's profile, I wondered if he knew of rape. I raped him. Did he know there was a small seed growing in my womb? Would he stand with me no matter what?

Next, called the clerk.