Apparently, the Trump era Supreme Court nominees lied to the Senate and the American public when they said Roe v Wade was settled law. Trump promised his small percentage of religious right supporters that he would nominate pro-life justices who would overturn Roe v Wade and that promise looks like it might be fulfilled, despite the 80% of Americans in favor of keeping most provisions for abortion. While I am well past the time when I could be forced to bear a child, this decision still affects me because it will negatively affect people’s trust in one another and perhaps have an ill effect on people I care about. While I’ve never had an abortion, I did miscarry a child that never formed properly in my womb. It’s unbelievable that there are states looking to pass laws that would investigate miscarriages, truly making this a witch hunt. If abortion is murder, then I suppose that makes God Himself the biggest culprit. In an earlier post, I talked about my views on abortion and so I decided to repost some of those views with edits that incorporate our current state of affairs.
Just before I got married, I went to see my doctor to obtain a diaphragm to prevent pregnancy. We had plans to enjoy a few years together while establishing ourselves financially before starting a family. I used my new diaphragm and felt confident that it was doing its job, so much so that it took five trips to the doctor for “indigestion” and “nausea” and my insistence that “No, I couldn’t possibly be pregnant”, for a doctor to finally say, “Let’s do a pregnancy test anyway.” And to my great surprise, I was pregnant! Although, not in our immediate plans, we were happy about the news and welcomed our first baby girl in March 1979. But not everyone who gets pregnant unexpectedly is in the emotional, financial, and supportive network situation I enjoyed back then. Abortion had only recently become a legal option, but it wasn’t an option I needed to consider at the time. Years later, I became thankful that for those women who experienced the desperation of an unwanted pregnancy, a safe abortion was a viable option. I no longer believe abortion is murder and I have yet to meet a woman who would opt for a late-stage abortion without good reason.
Admittedly, my attitudes about abortion have evolved. Back in the early 1980s, I blindly followed the teachings from my conservative white evangelical pastors who became pro-life activists, strangely claiming like others today, that they were acting on behalf of the Almighty to stop “genocide”. The Republicans courted these single-issue voters who eventually cast aside all compassion for others in favor of casting judgment. It took the ugliness of intolerance, several sex scandals, and public moral failings among these men to disabuse me of the notion that they were true followers of Christ. I changed from being a follower of a pastor to a follower of Christ’ actual teachings. Among those changes in my belief system was my view on abortion.
I think it is a good thing that women today have multiple options to avoid pregnancy altogether, and so I hope many more take advantage of these options. However, I know personally, that contraception isn’t 100% effective. That said, I am shocked by the outrageous state laws being passed to prevent women from seeking to terminate an unwanted or unviable pregnancy, sometimes even before she realizes she is pregnant. It’s even more outrageous that a state would criminalize those trying to help her and that any state would offer bystanders a bounty to turn people in. The race to enact the strictest anti-abortion laws in Republican run states is absent both medical advice, fiscal considerations, and basic human compassion.
In particular, I’m furious by how intrusive the religious right and the Republicans are into the private affairs of women whom they don’t know nor care about. They think it is their place to insist that a woman proceed with an unwanted pregnancy, no matter the circumstances, as if that is somehow a simple and noble thing to do. These so call “freedom loving patriots” are happy to force their beliefs on others without compassion nor critical thinking nor any thought to the health, freedom, and lives of the girls and women affected. How dare they!
It is widely known in the medical field that giving birth is actually more life-threatening that surgical or medical abortion. And this is especially true in Texas. Close observers will note that nationally maternal deaths among Black women in particular is nearly 4 times higher than that of white women, and 10-17 times higher in the southern states like Texas. (The United States Maternal Mortality Rate Will Continue To Increase Without Access To Data | Health Affairs) One could easily argue that this isn’t a fight for the lives of the unborn, but an additional assault on the lives of black women who account for about a third of abortions in the country. Does anyone really believe that these white conservative lawmakers want to see a lot more black babies being born? I don’t.
I made my argument about why I don’t view abortion as murder in past posts. To recap, I view life as beginning with breath and the ability of a fetus to take a breath. I believe the womb is a place of formation of the temporary human body that a soul may one day occupy. A fetus doesn’t become a living soul until the breath of life. In Bible scripture we read that it wasn’t until God breathed life into the body of Adam, which He had formed out of dust of the earth, that Adam became a living soul. It is likely true that the midwifes in the early days of our nation, most of whom were black women and who regularly performed abortions before white doctors literally drove them out of the profession, believed the same thing. The idea that life begins at conception is pretty new and began in the pulpit, not the science lab. And the idea that a heartbeat is the start of life is also poor reasoning. The heart is simply a pump that can be transplanted from one person to another. In the womb, it starts pumping the mother’s blood. If these pro-lifers truly believed that begins at conception or with a heartbeat, then they should be having funerals for every miscarriage a woman has. Do they even realize that between 10-20 percent of known pregnancies end in naturally occurring miscarriage? And after age 40, nearly 50% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Many more women miscarry before they even know they are pregnant, and some estimate the number of miscarriages to be nearly a third of all pregnancies.
While I am outraged by the likelihood of the Supreme Court overturning Roe and the plethora of new laws being passed in Republican states, I realize that we should do a better job educating our daughters, granddaughters, nieces, cousins, and girlfriends about their alternatives so that surgical abortion isn’t even necessary in most cases. Although, in this day and age, I won’t bother to make a case for abstinence. So, first, there is contraception. Yes, it sometimes fails, but for the most part, it is quite effective. Second, there is the Plan B pill for those unexpected sexual encounters. Plan B prevents pregnancy from happening in the event of unprotected sex. Third, there are safe drugs to induce abortion if taken in the first eight weeks of pregnancy. Unfortunately, there are some states looking to ban these drugs altogether and to prevent women from obtaining them through the mail from out of state sources. In addition to educating ourselves, we need to elect lawmakers who have our best interest in mind.
It is necessary in the face of these draconian laws to preserve surgical abortion for those sad cases when the mother’s life is in danger or those rare cases of indecision due to changing circumstances or utter surprise. According to the CDC, abortion rates have been declining for years and that 92.2% of surgical abortions occur prior to 13 weeks’ gestation. That’s a good thing, but we can continue to do better if we educate and encourage the other women in our lives, particularly those in their 20’s who make up almost 58% of surgical abortions about the other options. It looks like denial, procrastination, immaturity, lack of access, and perhaps ignorance are the primary culprits that we should be addressing proactively so that we can collectively avoid an influx of unwelcome babies that we’ll all have to support. With total bans becoming likely in 26 states, women seeking abortion will have to travel out of state to obtain the care they need. This may be difficult if not impossible for poor women. The result will be a rise in infant mortality, maternal mortality, poverty and the crime that accompanies it.
And finally, to the religious pro-lifers who insist that abortion is murder and must be stopped at all costs, I would ask them to consider the actual science and then look at the lives of the young women involved, the fathers, and the innocent babies they are forcing to be born into circumstances that are far from ideal. These same legislators who want to ban all abortions also refuse adequate support for food, healthcare, childcare, and education, essentially condemning these women and their children to poverty. So, if care for life is really all that important, then please begin by 1) supporting sex education and contraception, 2) improving maternal care for black women, 3) ensuring adequate support resources, and 4) for all our sakes, get vaccinated and wear a mask in public and mandate the wearing of mask in schools.
For the rest of us, it is imperative to exercise our civic responsibility by voting for lawmakers who will protect a woman’s right to choose when and if she will bring children into this world. Let’s start by defying history and increasing Democratic representation in local and national elections this year.