We are better than this.

We’re far from perfect, but we have to be better than this.

“Promise me you’ll take care of my son.”

Those were 28 year old Amber Thurman’s last words to her own mother as she lay dying in a Georgia hospital bed.

Her death was completely preventable.

The state’s draconian abortion ban killed her.

The doctors there were so afraid of going to prison, they made Amber wait while her infection spread.

She waited for 20 hours. It wasn’t until her organs were failing and her body was shutting down, that they finally intervened.

But it was too late. She was gone. Her beautiful 6 year old son was left motherless.

Her son who she loved above all else, now has to spend the rest of his life without his mom.

Why? Because she tried to terminate an unwanted pregnancy in the Deep South where women in her position have to contend with a gauntlet of hurdles and roadblocks just to get basic reproductive care.

So few options are available, many, like Amber are left to manage their abortions and miscarriages themselves.

And when something went wrong, she sought medical care. All she needed was a D&C to remove the remaining fetal tissue that was causing the infection. The hospital staff knew that right away. But this was post-Dobbs Georgia, and no one knew definitively if they COULD legally give her the care she needed.

So they didn’t.

And now she’s gone.

I can’t stop thinking about this, because I had a D&C in 2015 after I miscarried nearly halfway through my pregnancy.

That was my fourth pregnancy. And it was my second miscarriage. The first was the first time I was ever pregnant and I was so terrified, confused and traumatized by what was happening, I couldn’t even leave my house to seek care. So, I just bled in my bathroom.

It was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life. A seemingly endless nightmare. One which will stay with me for the rest of my days.

With the second miscarriage, a baby I very much wanted, through my inconsolable tears, I called my doctor immediately. They saw me immediately. We had a plan for the D&C I needed immediately.

He never worried about going to prison. He never instructed me to go home and miscarry naturally. He didn’t have to phone my Congressman first.

He comforted me. He explained what he thought would be best for my health. He told me how much time I would have to make whatever peace I possibly could with the loss before I had to say goodbye.

I had the time to hold on to my baby a little longer. To grieve for her. And I had the time and space to talk to my children. To try to explain to my then 7 year old son and 4 year old daughter that the baby they had each already excitedly named, had passed away.

I didn’t have to wait in a hospital bed while the tissue from that non-viable pregnancy poisoned me to death. I didn’t have to worry that I had hugged my own babies for the last time when I said goodbye that morning.

I didn’t have to face death like Amber did.

And to be quite honest, I cannot fathom a world in which I’d have to. But that world is here in red states all over this country. And it’s a world coming for all of us should the unthinkable happen in November.

This is not an issue of being “pro-life” or “pro-choice”. The life that was lost was hers. And saving her life wouldn’t have ended anyone else’s. And yet here we are.

Have we gone so astray that we can look the other way when women are being left to die before being provided care? Are we that lost?

I get into a lot of trouble for saying things like I’m about to say, I get called naive and foolish, but I am who I am, I believe what I believe, and I’m going to say it anyway.

I don’t think we are that lost as a whole. I don’t think that is who we are. I don’t think that is who we want to be. I know we’re not perfect, far from it, but I do believe we are better than that.

Are there many who aren’t? Absolutely. Are there even more who won’t speak up despite knowing this is wrong? For sure. But, I still believe that most of us are largely decent. Most of us see a photo of Amber and her son and feel disgusted by what was done to her. What was done to him.

And all I keep thinking, as I watch this horrifically tragic story intersecting with the stories about that fucking monster Mark Robinson, is that the Republican Party truly is the worst of us.

This is a party which will sentence a hardworking young mother to death while standing by a bigoted, depraved psychopath like Robinson at the same time.

A party that does their damndest to slut shame any woman who has the audacity to stand up for herself, wants a porn site parasite and self-proclaimed “Black Nazi” to move in to a Governor’s mansion at the same time.

They don’t just embody the worst of us, they embolden it. They celebrate it. They reward it with power. Laura f’ng Loomer wasn’t flying around with and maybe happy ending handing, an adjudicated rapist felon because she was a paragon of morality and restraint.

It was because she said the worst things anyone could ever say, for sport.

And I have to believe that shitfucks like her, Robinson and Trump are the outliers, not in that cult of course, where they are the standard bearers, but in the country as a whole.

We don’t tuck our kids in at night telling them to imagine raping women so they can grow up to be president some day. We don’t shrug and say “oh well” when we look at Amber and her son. We don’t want the bad guys to win.

We really don’t.

If that’s me being naive then so be it. I’m not an idiot, I know there’s plenty of ugliness to go around in our country, and yes, maybe this is more of a plea than it is a reflection of reality, but I want to aspire to be better than this.

My two children are the greatest blessings I will ever know. I understand how lucky I am to have them because I have lost as many babies as I have had. And I can’t help but wanting to show them that the universe rewards those who do the right things. I want them to be good people. I want them to want good things for other people.

And if I am hopeless because I resign myself to the idea that we’re all lost, then I am failing them.

And they are far too precious for me to do that.

All of our babies are.

We all are.

It’s time to make depravity disqualifying again. It’s time to kick cruelty to the curb.

For Amber Thurman, for her son, for our children, for our country, for our futures and for ourselves.

We don’t have to be perfect, but we have to be better than this. We have to demand better than this.

This November is our chance to prove to ourselves and to the world, that we are in fact, better than this.

So, let’s fucking go.