Pro Life Means Women Suffer and Die

Blog#191- 2/22/24

PRO LIFE MEANS WOMEN SUFFER AND DIE
By
Richard Davis

For 50 years our country gave women the right to control their bodies when it came to the decision to terminate a pregnancy. The Supreme Court took that away in June of 2022. The result of their ruling is that states now have the ability to ban abortions and at least 24 states have done so with a variety of time restrictions.

Many voters will still have this issue in mind in November and it is important for all of us to find out where candidates stand on this issue. Some states, like Vermont, quickly passed legislation to give a woman the right to choose and that means that women at least can try to go to states without abortion bans when they need the procedure.

While this issue has been mostly framed as a political issue, the alarms were sounded for the potential damage this new ruling might cause. Not every woman in Texas or Alabama who chooses to have an abortion can afford to travel to a state where it is legal and, because timing is so critical, any delays may mean that the procedure is no longer available when a woman finally makes an appointment in a state that she may not be able to get to.

Some of the language of anti-abortion legislation is so restrictive that doctors are afraid to perform any procedure that might be interpreted to be an abortion by a legal system controlled by people who have no medical training. A recent commentary in The Nation explicitly cites examples of how these laws play out.

In the piece by Michele Goodwin she notes that, “In October, 34 year old Ohio resident Brittany Watts was charged with a felony following her miscarriage. Watts experienced vaginal bleeding and excruciating pain and faced the risk of sepsis, and doctors acknowledged that her pregnancy was not viable. But because of the state’s abortion ban, no one intervened to give Watts the care she needed. After she miscarried, police raided her home and destroyed her toilet in search of fetal remains.”

It is worth quoting Goodwin just to understand how bad things are for women. “Reports of pregnant women bleeding for days without medical intervention, criminal prosecutions involving miscarriages, women suffering near-fatal conditions such as sepsis before fleeing their home states for care elsewhere, children forced to give birth after being raped, and people being denied abortions in cases involving nonviable fetuses or those deceased in utero are no longer uncommon.”

What kind of world has the current supremely right wing court created? Women should flood the Supreme Court with these stories every day and send graphic pictures to the justices to make them see the results of their misguided and inhumane decision. When it comes to elections for congress and the presidency, voters need to put this issue at the top of their vote decision agenda. Anyone who supports the Supreme Court decision needs to be called out as an enabler of suffering and death.

And just when you think things couldn’t get any worse the Alabama Supreme Court has decided that frozen embryos are children. Women have been storing embryos for later implantation knowing that many might have to be destroyed at a later date. Now, if any of those embryos are destroyed in Alabama a woman could be charged with murder.

Some Alabama women are trying to figure out how to store their frozen embryos in another state. If they move them will the courts prosecute them for kidnapping or for jeopardizing the life of a child? What kind of world are we living in?