I am the first to tell you that I am human and I make mistakes. I feel passionately about things and I express myself that way. When one does that, one is almost guaranteed to screw up sometimes. But I would rather speak up in a flawed way than stay quiet out of the fear of getting it wrong.

We are living in a terrifying world, a world that – in my country at least – threatens to go completely backwards. It’s disgusting and dangerous that these people in power are allowed to inflict their personal beliefs on the lives of millions. On the other hand, as a relatively privileged white woman, I am well aware that there have always been reproductives rights issues for those not as lucky as I am. I am here to speak up, defend and protest. I am also here with humility, recognizing that I do indeed have much to learn and that I have been silently complicit in the problems that already existed.

The truth is that if we want to be informed, if we want to step into the shoes of others, we have to do the work. We have to listen and learn and research and find out what goes on in the worlds of those who do not have our reality. Only then can we be allies, instead of unwittingly making it about ourselves. Only then can we start to know what it is to present a united front against wrongdoing and injustice.

I know that I have much to learn. I know that I don’t always take the time and do the work to know what I should. I am also willing and my focus is helping those who are consistently treated as less than, knowing that they don’t have the luxuries I do. To walk away. To go back to my somewhat comfortable existence. Many do not have that base. Many have no resources, no support, no voice. That is where those of us who do need to step in and support our fellow human beings.

No more separation. No more divisiveness. No more forgetting that we have more in common than we have in opposition. We must drop the pretense and we must drop our egos. We must listen and we must learn, or there is no moving forward.

I hope that we have the humility and conscience to get there.