Courtesy of Bastrop Advertiser
Oct. 1, 2020
By Joni Ashbrook
President Donald Trump vowed only to nominate people to the Supreme Court that would overturn Roe v. Wade, making abortion illegal. I believe he’s fulfilled that promise by nominating Amy Coney Barrett.
The first time I thought about abortion was in high school during a mock Congress exercise where we debated abortion. I was 18, a virgin, and that question was easy to answer then: of course it should be illegal.
But in a few short years, I would have life experiences that turned that thinking on its head. I began to feel like my life depended on being able to end a pregnancy.
I was in a marriage that I couldn’t get out of. I remember one time running to my car and just barely being able to roll up the window and lock the door to escape. He would often hold me down for hours at a time.
I understand women in abusive relationships, I didn’t tell anyone what was happening. I had lost all will, and had stopped fighting.
We moved to California away from friends and family, and I got pregnant. Some tiny spark of life that was left in me said if I had this man’s baby, I would never get away, and it felt like I would die.
I had the abortion, and we later moved back to Texas. My family saw the shape I was in, so my dad intervened and got my husband to leave me alone, but I knew he’d be back.
A friend was going to backpack in Europe for a couple of months, so I joined her.
Thankfully, when I returned, he had moved on with his life. I had nightmares for years, and I shook uncontrollably if someone mentioned his name.
In 2013, Texas Republicans passed a law that would have shut down most abortion clinics in Texas. I attended the hearing at the Capitol every day listening to hundreds of women tell their stories. Mine seemed insignificant compared to theirs.
I joined other women who went to jail in protest. That law was later found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Overturning Roe won’t end abortion; it will only stop it from being legal and safe. Low income women will be forced into back-alley abortions that at times end in death.
If abortion had not been legal, I would have found some way to end my pregnancy. However, women of means will always have a safe choice.
If Republicans truly want fewer abortions, they would make birth control much more affordable and accessible, but they do the opposite.
Republicans often demonize Planned Parenthood and call to defund it even though abortions are only 3% of its health services. Two million women rely on Planned Parenthood each year for their birth control.
In July, the Supreme Court endorsed Trump’s plan to weaken Obamacare’s mandate that employer’s health insurance plans must include birth control.
Now employers can not only claim religious exemptions, which the law has exceptions for, but bosses can now claim “moral” exemptions to including contraceptives in their health care plans.
The government estimated up to 126,000 women could lose contraception coverage with this ruling.
Also in 2015, Colorado Republicans killed a highly successful program in bringing down teenage pregnancies and curbing abortions by offering low or no-cost contraceptive devices, including IUDs.
One reason the program was ended was because of false claims that IUDs themselves caused abortions.
Many women choose to continue with an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy, and that’s their choice, but all women deserve a choice.
