I may be losing hope. Hope that our country can unite in meaningful ways toward a common good and promising future. Hope that those representing us at the highest levels will speak the truth. Hope that the enviable rights we do have will be retained. Hope that the inhumane gulf between classes will shrink. Hope that our children will grow up to be stewards of a healthy planet.

As Syrian refugees flee for their lives and lose them in the process, as gun violence only escalates, as fires rage and temperatures rise, as women’s rights to the health of their own bodies and the decisions of their own minds continue to be diminished by a largely white, male, privileged political elite, I am trying to stay calm. I am trying to believe that worse things won’t happen. That they can’t directly violate us.

Then, the U.S. House votes to defund Planned Parenthood based on manipulated videos, details of which Carly Fiorina presented as fact during the most recent GOP debate. These videos came to light relatively recently, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Congress move so quickly—while threatening yet another abusive government shutdown—in order to strip us of access to long-held constitutional rights. Meanwhile, the world suffers in urgent ways. What’s more, our government officials are allowed to do this, to use false claims to take away true rights. Can someone please explain this to me?

When I was 24 and briefly between full-time jobs, I went to Planned Parenthood for reproductive health exams and affordable birth control. Implicit in that care and service was that I would have less of a chance of ever needing an abortion. However, I had peace of mind knowing there was a place to go if I did. There were many other women in the waiting room with me during those visits. We had walked from our different lives toward the same needs. These are a few of the reasons #IStandWithPP.

I now have to wonder if my daughter will grow up with the same peace of mind. Yet, we pride ourselves on being a country that doesn’t move backward, that advances our human rights, medical science, and the pursuit of happiness. Well, we are happiest if we are healthy, makers of our own destiny, and not backed into a corner. My daughter and I can’t remember what life was like before Roe v. Wade, but our mothers and grandmothers can (#AskYourMother). This dangerous past is exactly what those who voted to defund Planned Parenthood want for our future. But not theirs. The vast majority of them couldn’t get an abortion if they wanted one. The vast majority of them are not female or poor or desperate or needing to finish school or failed by contraception or simply unable for whatever reason to raise a child—or still a child themselves.

I never did need an abortion from Planned Parenthood. But when I was nearly 24 weeks pregnant, I needed to terminate my much-wanted pregnancy for medical reasons. I made a decision with an informed mind, a devastated heart, wise medical counsel, and the love and concern of my husband and co-parent, Ryan. Not one government official needed to be consulted, though now that is changing. Our decision changes nothing about my love for my son or how badly I wish he was turning three today, September 20, his original due date. My induction and delivery had to take place in a hospital, not a Planned Parenthood clinic. And if my son’s body could have helped medical science better understand why only half a heart grew inside of his, I would have wanted others to benefit. In life, after all, his body would have been subjected to medical test and invasive procedure after medical test and invasive procedure—pain we protected him from.

That option wasn’t presented to me, however, just as it wasn’t that he would be a healthy three-year-old boy today. If it had been, it would have had zero sway on my ultimate decision (something else those in opposition want us to believe). This option is presented to those who choose it in the context of these videos. Those who have made it have helped science make medical breakthroughs across a host of diseases since the 1930s. But again, those in power are legislating away our agency to make decisions about our bodies, health, and futures. They have clarified that we women do not deserve their protection; they would rather push us closer to harm. How can anyone not consider this an outright attack?

When we’re at war, our anxieties rise. Our hearts twist. Our human nature is tested. I am not sure how we pass this test together. One thing I do know is that I cannot, in fact, stay calm.