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Dear Casper,
Today is Mother’s Day. Earlier this week Ross Schriftman, who is running for House District 37, sent out a mailer all about mothers and their role. How thoughtful of him to mansplain motherhood to all the mothers out there.
As a mother of four myself, I know that I love nothing more than having a man, who doesn’t even have kids himself, tell me how best to be a mother. Schriftman praises his own mother for how she “sacrificed so much” but lived “joyfully” in her service to other people. The pedestal he puts his mother on sounds unstable. I really wish I could have given her a hand in getting off that pedestal. Given the chance I would topple the pedestals of every mother held to absurd standards of self-sacrifice before they were ever held up there to begin with.
Motherhood is exceptionally hard and made harder by living in a country that does not take care of mothers. If you’re a man out there thinking, I’m tired of women making such a fuss about motherhood, parenting is not that hard, then you must be propping yourself up against a mother’s pedestal.
Schriftman is the self-appointed champion of the “pro-life” movement in Casper. According to his mailer, being pro-family and pro-babies are the only platform he is running on. In service of that role, Schriftman likes to loiter outside Wellspring to berate and name call women going to life-saving appointments.
With maternal mortality rates on the rise since the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, one cannot say they are pro-mothers without supporting their unfettered access to the medical care they need. Mothers are going untreated for miscarriages and dying of sepsis. Since their complete abortion ban, “Texas saw a 50% jump in the sepsis rate among women who lost their pregnancies in the second trimester,” according to the Population Reference Bureau.
According to Ross, “While being a mom is challenging, motherhood brings joy and creates empowerment.” Oh yes, Ross, endangering women’s lives with restricted access to medical care brings so much joy to mothers. Let me tell you, I feel so very empowered knowing that I have fewer medical rights than men.
I know motherhood. It is both beautiful and so very exhausting. I have experienced countless sleepless nights and cleaned up innumerable bodily fluids. I love being a mother, and I know motherhood is not the right fit for every woman. With women being the ones to put their very lives at stake to give birth, motherhood should only ever be their own choice to make. Ross, with his membership to the forced birth agenda, does not support or respect mothers and the sacrifices they make.
Writing in solidarity for a better Wyoming future,
Valerie Winters
Casper
