What explains my absence from not posting a blog entry this month so far?

The real answer is procrastination…but it feels better to blame the Texas legislature and Texas Governor for writing and signing the Texas Heartbeat Act (SB 8/HB 1515), which was assigned into law on May 19th, 2021 and became effective on September 1st, 2021.

This law is the first six-week abortion ban in the United States, and the first of its kind to rely on enforcement by private individuals through civil lawsuits, rather than by the government through criminal or civil enforcement. The act establishes a system in which members of the public can sue anyone who performs or facilitates an illegal abortion for a minimum of US$10,000 in statutory damages.

Think bounty hunting. Vigilantes.

Instead of civilians encouraged to hunt for slaves escaping to seek freedom, it will be civilians hunting for anyone who supports women seeking to terminate unwanted pregnancies – be it physician, clinic, driver who took the pregnant woman to the clinic, etc.

ABC News reports that the Texas law bans abortions after embryonic cardiac activity can be detected, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. Remember, however, back in June I noted:

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.

Also, the law requires minors have parental consent to obtain an abortion, which may be difficult to come by in cases of incest. Texas minors can get judicial approval to get an abortion without parental consent, but it may not be realistically feasible for a teen to confirm a pregnancy, go through the court system for a judge’s sign-off, and book an abortion appointment within two weeks of a missed period after being raped.

Perhaps the scariest aspect of the bill is that there are no exceptions for cases of rape, sexual abuse, incest, and fetal anomaly diagnoses.

Well, to me anyway, that is not only scary and stupid, but also disrespectful to more than half the population of America.

Oh yes, let’s not forget that five of the six conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court denied the emergency motion filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights on August 30, 2021, seeking to block the Texas Heartbeat Act from going into effect. So I’m a bit pissed at those justices, too.

Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s more liberal members, Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor, all wrote or joined dissents. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sotomayor wrote that “presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand”.

Hear, hear, Justice Sotomayor!

This Texas Heartbeat Act business has gotten me tied up in a knot of fury!

I’ve said before that I passionately believe Uncle Sam needs to stay out of every woman’s womb. Who wants the government to interfere with one’s intimately personal affairs? Who wants the government to interfere with a woman’s medical visits with her health provider?

Do YOU want anyone other than yourself telling you when and whether you ought to have offspring?

And if you do not, and you unexpectedly became pregnant, do you want the government and society to force you to carry the pregnancy to term, regardless of YOUR circumstances – in effect, having strangers who know absolutely nothing about you dictate to you what to do with YOUR body?

These politicians who dream up anti-abortion bills to control women’s reproductive choices and the governors who sign said bills into laws in the name of “pro-life” – do they ever imagine what it might be like to have Uncle Sam interfere in THEIR private lives? Could they imagine if someone wanted or needed a vasectomy or an erectile dysfunction medication that he had to jump through invasive, non-medically necessary procedures and interrogations deemed mandatory by medically-ignorant politicans?

And could they imagine if someone decided to seek a procedure because they didn’t want to be a father anymore, there might be a posse of civilians who thought otherwise about his reproductive choice and hunt down anyone (e.g. physician, clinic, driver) who supported this individual – with lawsuits, greenlighted by the state?

Methinks they would neither appreciate nor approve that!

You do notice that the White House, Congress, and state and local legislatures around the country are still predominately comprised of white males to this day, right? They don’t possess a uterus. And I don’t think they have a clue what a woman feels when she’s pregnant, or what she’s endured if she’s been brutally violated – let alone have any clue about menstrual cycles and the myriad reproductive health issues that can occur monthly or during a pregnancy.

So why the hell are politicians making laws governing women’s bodies?

If men were impregnated by a rapist or family member, would they happily accept Uncle Sam and society telling them they HAVE TO carry the pregnancy forward, NO EXCEPTIONS?

Why don’t these anti-choice politicians get off their high holy horse and stop fucking with women’s lives? They scream freedom and independence until it comes to controlling women. They don’t want freedom and independence for women? (or perhaps, only for the women in their families, but not poor and minority women?) Most of them are not doctors! And the few who are and who also endorse regulating women’s reproductive choices…well, they’re beneath comment.

Do these “pro-life” (mostly male) politicians know anything about women’s reproductive health?

Granted, probably a lot of us aren’t wholly familiar with the intricate details of female reproductive health and pregnancy, but the difference between everyday citizens and sanctimonious politicians is that the latter have publicly made morons of themselves by expounding on their “knowledge” of women.

Recall these lovely gems:

“From what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist.”

~former Representative Todd Akin (R-MO), on pregnancy caused by rape. August 2012

“It [the new law] doesn’t require that [carrying a rapist’s baby to term] at all, because, obviously, it provides at least six weeks for a person to be able to get an abortion.”

~Texas Governor Greg Abbott, on being asked why a rape victim would have to carry a pregnancy to term. September 8, 2021

Gestation, as an ABC reporter recently clarified, is measured from a person’s last menstrual period, and ovulation – when a person can become pregnant – occurs about two weeks after that. So the new Texas Heartbeat Act, in reality, gives a person about four weeks after conception — or two weeks after a missed period — to confirm a pregnancy and book an appointment for an abortion within that tight timeframe.

Moreover, some victims of rape or incest are young and may not yet have a full understanding of or familiarity with their menstrual cycles to be able to so quickly identify a pregnancy.

Leave women alone, dammit! It’s their bodies, their lives. Especially leave them alone if you don’t support taxpayer-funded safety net programs to help these women raise their children. Allow me to indulge by reposting the following comment I take to heart:

“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

A woman’s body is hers alone. What’s her pregnancy and reproductive choice got to do with your lives, Mr./Ms. Anti-choice politician?

It’s not like pregnancy is a highly transmissible virus and an imminent threat to public health.

Her body, her choice.

Worry about your own morality and look in the mirror first, please, dear elected “pro-life” officials.

Sources

ABC News
CNN
Wikipedia
Planned Parenthood
Huffington Post – Todd Akin on Abortion: Legitimate Rape …
The Cut
NBC News
NPR
The Guardian
PoliticusUSA
Media Matters
Huffington Post – No, Virginia’s Governor Did Not Endorse Killing Babies