This headline caught my attention the other day:

Texas high school valedictorian scraps approved speech — and speaks out on new anti-abortion law

On May 30th, 2021, at Lake Highlands High School’s graduation in Dallas, TX, Paxton Smith scrapped her valedictory address – which had been approved by school officials – and told her audience it felt wrong to her “to talk about anything but what is currently affecting me and millions of other women in this state.”

She said:

I have dreams, hopes, and ambitions. Every girl here does. We have spent our whole lives working towards our futures, and without our consent or input, our control over our futures has been stripped away from us. I am terrified that if my contraceptives fail me, that if I’m raped, then my hopes and efforts and dreams for myself will no longer be relevant. I hope you can feel how gut-wrenching it is, how dehumanizing it is, to have the autonomy over your own body taken from you.”

WOW!

Ms. Smith has got guts. And a strong sense of self-confidence, to scrap her school official-approved speech and instead speak publicly and passionately about women’s reproductive health and how the new anti-abortion law signed by her governor could affect her and millions of other women.

The Texas law – one of the nation’s strictist abortion measures – outlaws ending a pregnancy as early as six weeks, before many women are even aware they are pregnant, and after a “fetal heartbeat” has been detected. It includes cases where the woman was impregnated as a result of rape or incest. There is an exception for medical emergencies.

Similar “heartbeat” bills have been passed by other states and held up by the courts, but Texas’ version has a twist, notes the Texas Tribune.

Instead of having the government enforce the law, the bill turns the reins over to private citizens — who are newly empowered to sue abortion providers or anyone who helps someone get an abortion after a fetal heartbeat has been detected. The person would not have to be connected to someone who had an abortion or to a provider to sue.

WTF?!

It is yet another so-called “fetal heartbeat” measure, which medical experts say is a scientifically misleading phrase. Why?

Because pulsing cells can be detected in embryos as early as six weeks, this rhythm — detected by a doctor, via ultrasound — cannot be called a “heartbeat,” because embryos don’t have hearts.

Obstetricians say the term “fetal heartbeat” is misleading, and that this scientific misunderstanding, among countless others, may contribute to negative public opinion toward abortion, reports The Cut.

Robyn Schickler, OB/GYN and Physicians for Reproductive Health fellow explained to The Cut that what is detectable at or around six weeks can more accurately be called “cardiac activity”. She and others argue that what doctors can detect is essentially communication between a group of what will eventually become cardiac cells.

Jennifer Kerns, an OB/GYN and professor at the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF), added:

These are cells that are programmed with electrical activity, which will eventually control the heart rate — they send a signal telling the heart to contract, once there is a heart. It is this early activity which ultrasounds detect — not a heartbeat.

Electrical activity from a cluster of pulsing CELLS. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, you anti-choice, anti-science lawmakers!

Nationally, according to a report the Planned Parenthood Federation of America released in March 2021, legislation limiting abortion in 2021 has skyrocketed in comparison to a similar time frame in 2019. Compared to bills introduced from January through mid-March 2019, medication abortion restrictions and bans have tripled to 33, anti-abortion constitutional amendments have tripled to 14. Compared to just one abortion restriction enacted by this point in 2019, 12 have been enacted so far this year by states.

Overall, state legislatures have introduced 516 abortion restrictions, compared to 304 by mid-March 2019.

Why are politicians so hell-bent on policing women’s bodies?

Mr. or Ms. Politician, you’re not being “pro-life” when you consider only the fetus, not giving a flying fig about a pregnant woman’s life and moreover cutting social safety net services like SNAP and Medicaid. You’re just reducing the woman to a mere baby vessel. “Pro-birth” is more accurate, I think.

Would you, Mr. or Ms. Politician, savor the idea of having the government intrude on your private doctor visits? Of course not! Only if it involves someone else, right? (like someone female, and especially someone female and a minority?) You like government so small it can fit into a woman’s womb?

Get the hell OUT of my and other women’s wombs. You don’t belong there. What’s next? A government minder in the room during an exam of your wife/mother/sister/friend because you don’t trust the women in your life or her doctor?

How would you feel if politicians wanted to intrude on you or your husband/father/brother/friend’s doctor-patient relationship in some way – such as a law dictating a doctor had to report to the state when a man has a vasectomy – including reporting if the man refused to do so if forced by the state; and also a law wherein a doctor has to report each time a patient is prescribed erectile dysfunction medication or testoserone and testosterone-enhancing drugs? Or a law rebooted from the not-too-distant-past that essentially says you need sterilization because of who you are, e.g., a minority, a low-income earner, someone with a criminal record, etc.?

Would you not dread the state knowing about your or your loved one’s junk business?

Politicians wouldn’t care at all about your junk or that of the men in your family any more than they care about pregnant women’s lives, regardless of their circumstances. Privacy and respect be damned! You’re just another sperm bank or baby vessel who needs oversight from unseen, holier-than-thou lawmakers who don’t trust you to think for yourself, let alone believe you deserve the freedom to have bodily autonomy!

I hope millions upon millions of women will take inspiration from young Paxton Smith and mobilize against these intrusive, restrictive, and dehumanizing laws against women.

I hope that her generation will become an undeniable force to be reckoned with in making these sorts of laws completely unacceptable, disgusting, and horrific to society – making anti-choice measures ancient history – a notion dreamed up by barbarian minds consumed with controlling women’s bodies and their lives.

And I fervently hope that Ms. Smith’s generation – of all genders – will be the one that permanently and legally enables all women – here in the USA and around the globe, to live freely without fear of government interference into their private health matters forevermore. That would be an incredible achievement to materialize in my lifetime.

I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.

~Sister Joan Chittister, Benedictine nun, 2004

Sources

Alternet
Common Dreams
HuffPost
Popsugar
Berkeley Political Review
ThoughtCo.
Mic.com
PBS
Texas Tribune
NPR
Planned Parenthood
Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF)
The Cut
Wired