Courtesy of Bastrop Advertiser
Sept. 16, 2021
By Joni Ashbrook
Abortion is obviously very controversial. Mexico finally decriminalized abortions, just as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 8, a law that bans abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected, which is roughly six weeks.
This Texas law bans almost all abortions since most women don’t even realize they are pregnant within that timeframe, and there are no exceptions for rape or incest.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to block this blatantly unconstitutional law because of how SB 8 uses private individuals for enforcement rather than state officials.
Some desperate low-income women will be forced into back-alley abortions or attempt it themselves. In the book “The Worst of Times,” Coroner Fred recalled what it was like before Roe v. Wade made abortion safe and legal 50 years ago.
He said women had “either bled to death or they had died from overwhelming infections. Some had tears along the vaginal tract where they had used coat hangers.” He also said that most women were in their “teens or twenties,” and “The deaths stopped overnight in 1973.”
This Texas law will also force women and young girls who are victims of rape or incest to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term despite Abbott’s absurd claim that he can prevent that tragedy because he will “eliminate all rapists.”
Since the only way to reduce abortion is to stop unintended pregnancies, why aren’t Republicans passing out free birth control like candy on Halloween? They don’t, but the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, came close to doing it.
Obamacare gave more than 55 million women access to birth control by requiring employers and insurers to provide women with it at no cost. The law covered FDA-approved contraceptive methods, and exempted houses of worship.
In 2010, the groundwork for conflating birth control with abortion-inducing drugs, or abortifacients, began with the Tea Party opposing Obamacare’s expanded access to contraception.
Abortion opponents have even targeted intrauterine devices or IUDs, and emergency contraceptives known as the “morning-after pill” because they are taken after unprotected sex to prevent pregnancy.
IUDs are 45 times more effective than the pill, and 90 times more effective than a condom at preventing pregnancy, but it can cost $1,000.
In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores that some for-profit companies don’t have to pay for contraception that they claimed were abortifacients because it violates their religious beliefs.
In 2020, the Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration to allow employers to opt out of Obamacare’s mandate because of religious or moral objections causing over 100,000 women to lose access to free birth control.
Fox News falsely has claimed the morning-after pill is abortion, and now Republicans are legislating with this disinformation that will further erode women’s access to contraception.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., doesn’t want the Department of Veterans Affairs to cover Plan B, a morning-after pill. She wrongly claims it “kills a baby in the womb.”
Colorado Republicans tanked a program that provided free IUDs to low-income women even though it dramatically reduced their teen births.
Recently, Missouri GOP lawmakers tried to ban IUDs and Plan B. All of these Republicans want to create laws based on the same disinformation.
During Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing she alarmed people by refusing to say that the court’s ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut that protects the right to buy and use contraception was correctly decided. Barrett did say it was “unlikely” that decision would be overturned.
Don’t be fooled. Roe v. Wade hasn’t actually been “overturned,” yet Republican lawmakers and conservatives on the Supreme Court have gutted it into oblivion. Beware!
Ashbrook is a contributing columnist for the Advertiser. She is a retired school teacher and may be reached at [email protected].
