Our Very Own Dystopia

I don't like talking too much on the blog about things I'm working on. You know... the books that might never see the light of day. I also don't really like getting political here. But the parallels between the book I've been querying and current events are making me twitchy.

You see, Memory Keeper was written over a year ago. It takes place in a world that has been ravaged by war, where people die between twenty and twenty-five, which makes reproducing early and often a necessity if there's any hope to keep the human race alive. So... bad stuff happens in the name of saving the world. Really bad stuff. Women (girls) become little more than broodmares, and when push comes to shove, after a certain age, it's far more important to save the baby than save the mother.

The thing is politicians are making me wonder if we are going to have a world like this before an apocalypse makes it "necessary." Things that are happening now:

• Wisconsin representative Tom Pridemore is against divorce in all cases including abuse and thinks women who are abused should try to remember the good times and why they got married.
• Wisconsin senator Glenn Grothman is sponsoring a bill that would list single parenthood as a factor in child abuse and neglect. 
• Rush Limbaugh calls women who use birth control sluts (I'll let you google this one since there's so much online about it.
• Georgia representative Terry England thinks women should have to carry dead and dying fetuses to term... like cows and pigs. 
• Personhood amendments like the one being pushed in Ohio seek to give equal (and greater) rights to a zygote over the person carrying it. 
• Some states are trying to require ultrasounds prior to abortions (in some cases pushing for required transvaginal ultrasounds--essentially requiring doctors by law to rape patients). What one doctor has to say about it.

There are more things. This is all over the news and the internet, and the hits keep coming.

But we don't live in a post-apocalyptic world where we're struggling to keep humanity alive--we live now. The idea that laws are being pushed that would essentially turn women into livestock is terrifying. What's next? Stonings? Burning at the stake? Scarlet letters? We are supposed to move forward with the times, not back. Women need to take a united stand for our rights, or soon enough the government could take them all away.

We're on a path to our very own dystopia. I hope we don't have to travel very far down that road before people stand up collectively and fight back. May we work together to stop this before ending it requires a revolution.