As Texans affected by Hurricane Harvey desperately fight to maintain their livelihoods in the face of this horrible disaster, one feminist is fighting for the cause that truly matters: raising money for victims to get abortions.
On Thursday, former columnist for Feministing, Verónica Bayetti Flores, took to Twitter asking that people donate to the “Texas abortion fund” so that pregnant women affected by the hurricane can do away with their little problem in the face of the disaster.
“May I suggest that, among your donations for #Harvey relief, you consider also donating to a Texas abortion fund?” she tweeted. “This, too, is needed.”
She then followed this up explaining why money should help hurricane victims to have an abortion and not just help to feed, house, and clothe them, because abortion is apparently one of the bare necessities of life.
“Disasters mean missed appointments,” she worried. “Mass disruptions like this wreak havoc on people’s lives, particularly w this time sensitive care.”
Oh, the horror! If that’s not bad enough, wait until the abortion costs go up because of those missed appointments. “Every week beyond 12 weeks of pregnancy means it gets more expensive,” she complained. “For most people, the cheapest legal & safe options are still too expensive. So a missed appointment can be devastating if you’d just managed.”
Worse still, “mass missed appointments” and “disaster situations” mean that women will have to endure longer waits, and if “any clinics had to close due to flood damage ppl will have to travel to get the care they need” which “adds gas, lodging, lost wages.”
She certainly dedicated some tremendous brainpower to this; she even found a way to paint natural disasters as inherently sexist. “Narratives around climate disaster are deeply tied to repro oppression,” she tweeted.
Bayetti Flores has previously called abortion a “social good” and describes herself as a “New York City-based queer, immigrant Latina.”