This July 4th marks the fourth year that I will be boycotting America’s Independence Day. I wrote my first Independence Day post immediately following the fall of Roe. Without the basic right of bodily autonomy, there’s nothing else—no independence to celebrate. In 2024 I expanded my argument beyond reproductive healthcare to include gender affirming care, same sex marriage, affirmative action, and issues faced by immigrants and refugees. I could never have imagined that we’d be where we are in 2025 as I ask myself that same question.
Who gets to celebrate America’s Independence Day?
Women?
Nope. This year a dead woman in Georgia was forced to remain on life support until her fetus was considered viable. Doctors recently delivered Adriana Smith’s 1 pound 13 ounce baby. No word on the fate of that child, although it is likely to have numerous health challenges. And more states have passed stricter abortion laws in the last year. 41 states have abortion bans in effect. 13 states have a total abortion ban and 28 states have abortion bans based on gestation: 7 states ban abortion at or before 18 weeks and 21 states ban abortion at some point after 18 weeks (Guttmacher Institute).
Ironically, that has not stopped women from obtaining abortions, as the total number of abortions has steadily risen since the Dobbs decision: “Three years after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, erasing the national right to abortion and paving the way for more than a dozen states to ban the procedure, the number of abortions performed in the US is still on the rise – including in some states that ban the procedure. US abortion providers performed 1.14m abortions in 2024, according to new data released on Monday by #WeCount, a Society of Family Planning project that has tracked abortion provision since 2022. That’s the highest number on record in recent years. ‘We were really surprised to see the numbers go up over time,’ said Ushma Upadhyay, a University of California, San Francisco professor who serves as co-chair of the #WeCount steering committee. ‘Abortion bans haven’t really stopped people from needing abortion care. It’s just made it harder for them to be able to get it’” (The Guardian).
States have become emboldened under Donald Trump’s presidency, and we can anticipate more challenges to shield laws, further attempts to ban medication abortion (which largely accounts for the increase in abortions since the fall of Roe), and additional efforts to prevent people from traveling to obtain abortions.
Back to my question of who gets to celebrate.
The transgender community?
Heck no. In fact, trans soldiers who have courageously served their country were involuntarily separated from the military this year. And the Supreme Court just shut down healthcare services for trans youth in 27 states. On June 18th “the U.S. Supreme Court issued a devastating ruling in US v. Skrmetti, upholding Tennessee’s ban on affirming healthcare treatments for transgender youth (Senate Bill 1). Further, by deciding that SB1 is constitutional, the Supreme Court has made it more difficult to challenge similar laws in the 27 other states where such laws are currently in effect. This decision enables the removal of access to best-practice, medically necessary healthcare for thousands of transgender youth, inflicting harm on families who want to get their children the care they need to be healthy and thrive. The enormity of the harm that these laws do is sweeping, and so too are the violations of people’s rights.” (Human Rights Campaign).
Add to all that the fact that trans athletes can no longer participate in school sports competitions. The president signed an executive order banning transgender girls and women from participating in girls’ and women’s sports. At the signing ceremony, Trump, surrounded by girls, stated: “We will not allow men to beat up, injure and cheat our women and our girls. From now on, women’s sports will be only for women.” (ESPN)
How about the elderly—can they celebrate?
No. They will be losing any independence they have once they have been stripped of their Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. Oh, and their Meals on Wheels. Nothing to celebrate there. The funeral industry might be happy about this, but that’s it.
The disabled?
Absolutely not. They have the same concerns as the elderly, and just last week they went to Capitol Hill to voice these concerns. They were promptly zip tied to their wheelchairs and arrested—which leads me to the next group.
Veterans?
No celebration here. They were also zip tied and arrested—some of them in their eighties—when they staged a protest on the steps of the Capitol. In a video that went viral, “one officer wheels away John Spitzberg’s rollator walker, while the other uses zip ties to bind his hands behind his back. The 87-year-old veteran is unsteady on his feet — the result of several disabilities he suffers — as the crowd applauds, cheers and chants, ‘We won’t back down, we won’t retreat!’ Soon, the cheering turns to jeering and booing and chants of ‘Shame!’ against the officers. (NPR).
Children?
No celebrating for them. RFK Jr. is revising the childhood vaccine schedule. He already took the Covid vaccine away from children, and we know how he feels about the MMR vaccine. So kids have nothing much to celebrate except the return of childhood diseases that could very well kill them.
Immigrants, refugees, and international students?
Definitely not. Oh, I know. The current administration would argue that only ‘real Americans’ should get to celebrate American Independence. (I might argue that the current administration has replaced the monarchy we declared independence from with an autocracy of their own, but that is an argument for another day). However, denying people the right to celebrate and kidnapping them in order to force them out of the country are two very different things. We have seen, day after day after day, people ‘disappeared’ by masked men—beaten in some cases—shoved into cars and vans and stuffed into overcrowded detention centers where there is not enough food, no beds, no medication. Some have been deported to their country of origin. Others have been sent to Guantanamo before being moved to prisons in countries other than their own. In fact, the Supreme Court just blocked a lower court order requiring that 15 days notice be given to individuals the government wants to deport to countries other than their own. “In a searing dissent, the court’s three liberals accused the conservative majority of ‘rewarding lawlessness.’ Writing for the three, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, ‘The government has made clear in word and deed that it feels itself unconstrained by law, free to deport anyone, anywhere without notice or an opportunity be heard.’ Sotomayor said the Trump administration had already acted ‘in violation of unambiguous’ lower court orders, by flying four noncitizens to Guantanamo Bay, and from there to El Salvador. Following that, she said, ‘the government removed six people to South Sudan, with less than 16 hours notice’, basically overnight, and without any opportunity to contact their lawyers or be heard in court. The government, she said, ‘thus openly flouted two court orders,’ even before it went to the Supreme Court.” (npr)
International students have been abducted off the street. Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk was surrounded by masked men as she was walking to meet friends for dinner. She was targeted because she wrote an op-ed for the student paper criticizing the school’s response to the Gaza protests (Democracy Now). She was held in detention centers in Vermont and Louisiana for six weeks before a judge ordered that she be released. Her attorney’s rage was palpable: “’Unfortunately, it is 45 days too late. She has been imprisoned all these days for simply writing an op-ed that called for human rights and dignity for the people in Palestine,’ she said in a statement. ‘When did speaking up against oppression become a crime? When did speaking up against genocide become something to be imprisoned for?’” (NBC News)
The answer to that question is January 20, 2025.
So, who does get to celebrate America’s Independence Day as we face the death of democracy and the rise of a fascist state? Well, I guess Donald Trump does. And Hegseth. I’m sure he’ll have a drink or two to celebrate. Vance gets to celebrate just because he’s VP and he knows he will become head dictator if anything happens to Trump. Miller definitely gets to celebrate. He has orchestrated the takeover of America. Musk gets to celebrate because he ran roughshod over every federal agency in order to get exactly what he wanted. I am seeing a pattern here. The answer to my question of who gets to celebrate is old (or middle aged) white, straight, Christian, uber-wealthy men who have stripped everyone else of their civil and human rights.
Happy Loss of Independence Day.
Enjoy your bar-b-que.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay
