Mr. President?

[Content Note: Hostility to consent and safety; war on abortion access.]

Yesterday, the US Supreme Court made a detestable unanimous ruling in McCullen v. Coakley, deciding that buffer zones around abortion clinics violate protestors' free speech rights.

There is absolutely no question that this ruling will further undermine abortion access, which state legislatures have been endeavoring to erode in every conceivable fashion.

It also seems to violate the Supreme Court's own undue burden standard, unless the nine justices honestly believe it is not an undue burden for an abortion-seeking person to have to run a gauntlet of harassment and threats emanating from members of a domestic terrorist campaign in order to access a legal healthcare procedure.

So I have been waiting to hear what our ostensibly pro-choice president has to say about this reprehensible ruling.

Surely he has something to say on behalf of "our mothers, wives, and daughters," and their right to bodily autonomy, safety, and choice.

But if there has been a statement from the White House, I have not been able to find it.

Nothing has been posted by the White House's Council on Women and Girls.

I want President Barack Obama to address this decision. I want him to address, firmly and routinely and without apology, the all-out assault on our autonomy and agency, about which he has yet to dedicate a single address, while hundreds of new anti-choice restrictions are passed in state legislatures.

I am angry that this campaign of violence against women and others is allowed to go unchecked. I am angry that fetuses are valued more highly than the people who carry them. I am angry that women are not trusted to make the best decisions for our lives and our bodies. I am angry that I am just supposed to accept as reasonable men (and women) who sit in a government building making decisions about my body without my consent, though it is a crime for a person to use physical force to make decisions about my body without my consent.

I am angry that my body is not mine, that my mind is not mine. That legislators can claim to know what is best for my body and can claim to know my mind better than I do. That is dehumanizing, infantilizing, a theft of my dignity.

I am angry that North Alabama's only abortion clinic is being forced to close its doors today.

And I'm angry that I don't have the power to do anything meaningful about it, so I am angry that my president is not speaking up, that he's not using his bully pulpit to be an ally to women.

President Obama affirming his support of same-sex marriage was huge. He has the capacity to start conversations and change minds. I want his support and allyship. I want him to leverage his talents, which I admire, and his position, which is unique, to be on our side.

President Obama told us he is pro-choice. I believe him.

Mr. President: Where are you?