Courtesy of Bastrop Advertiser
June 29, 2022
By Joni Ashbrook
Last week, right-wing extremists on the Supreme Court killed Roe v. Wade and annihilated a right women have relied on for 50 years — autonomy over their own bodies.
There is a storm of despair and rage brewing in American women after one woman and four men (two of who have been credibly accused of sexual misconduct) rescinded that fundamental right on Friday.
In America, guns have more rights than women. The perverse irony is that a day before the Supreme Court ended Roe, the conservative justices ruled that the right to carry a concealed weapon was so fundamental that it couldn’t be left up to the states.
Yet those justices found that the fate of women should be tossed there, and 22 GOP-led states will surely ban abortion very soon.
Those GOP laws may criminalize women, doctors and possibly, like in Texas, put a bounty on anyone who helps a woman get an abortion.
Many states, including Texas, have laws with no exceptions for cases of rape or incest.
The same party that endlessly whined over their freedom being infringed upon by wearing a mask to save lives during a pandemic, will force girls to bear the children of their rapists or a family member.
While ending access to abortion will disproportionately affect women of color and poor women, those with means can travel to any state that continues to recognize women’s rights.
If Republicans retake Congress, Roe will be history nationwide. Then, wealthy women can travel to Mexico or Canada, while others might risk their lives with back-alley abortions.
Republicans are taking the extremely personal decision from a woman of when or if to have children, and giving that power to a political party that is overwhelming run by white men.
Besides the catastrophic turmoil that government-mandated pregnancy will bring to women and their families, overturning Roe has other consequences.
Miscarriages become suspect; medical care gets harder
Will women who miscarry be investigated to ensure that they didn’t have an abortion?
Dr. Stephanie Mischell, a Texas family medicine physician and fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, said “Medically, miscarriage and abortions are treated in a very similar way.”
According to some estimates, up to one in four pregnancies end in miscarriages, and some women don’t require care but others may need intervention to stop bleeding and make sure no pregnancy tissue remains as a guard against infection.
Mischell said doctors may be fearful of being construed as helping someone have an abortion. “I’ve seen patients who had been told they can’t get care for miscarriages even though those services are completely legal.”
Possible hindrance of fertility treatments and in vitro fertilization
This heinous decision may hinder women from having the family they desperately want.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine warned that “measures designed to restrict abortion could end up also curtailing access to the family building treatments upon which our infertility patients rely to build their families.”
Access to contraception, same-sex intimacy and marriage threatened
People are outraged that these justices lied under oath during their confirmation hearings about their stance on Roe. At least Justice Clarence Thomas was truthful in laying out their radical agenda in his concurring opinion.
Thomas said the justices should also “reconsider” the court’s decisions that have granted people the right to access birth control and same-sex marriage, as well as decriminalized same-sex intimacy. He said they have a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents.
Poll after poll shows a majority of Americans didn’t want Roe overturned. Republicans are fine with “activist judges” as long as they force their extreme agenda upon others.
Ashbrook is a contributing columnist for the Advertiser. She is a retired school teacher and may be reached at [email protected].
