Our Bodies, Our Choices

[Editorial]

There once was a party whose motto was get the government off your back, they bragged about less regulations, less government intrusion in to you life. But it was all a lie… that party really wanted to control every aspect of your life. They want to step between you and your doctors, they want to tell what you can say and what you can read.

I am old enough to remember the backroom abortions while the rich could go to Switzerland for a “vacation.”

I am old enough to remember the Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Lavender Scare where thousand of gay government employees were fired simply because they were gay.

I am old enough to remember when coffee shops were raided because the trans people there didn’t have on three items of male clothing on.

Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear!

A Black woman in Ohio was charged after miscarrying in her bathroom. Experts warn of the dangerous precedent.
Brittany Watts, 33, was charged after police searched her toilet following her miscarriage in September.
NBC News
By Natalie Kainz
December 22, 2023

A Black woman in Ohio has been charged with a felony for abuse of a corpse after she miscarried into her toilet, according to a criminal complaint, and reproductive rights experts are warning that it could set a dangerous precedent if she is convicted.

The attorney for Brittany Watts and a campaign organized on her behalf called the charges against her unjust, saying they feared the case could open the door to similar prosecutions and lawsuits over miscarriages nationwide.

Just hours after Watts, 33, was admitted to a hospital for a life-threatening hemorrhage after she miscarried in her bathroom Sep. 22, police removed her toilet from her home and searched it for fetal remains, according to a GoFundMe set up to fund her legal expenses and home repairs.
Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear where every woman feared a miscarriage!
Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, and the author of several books on the abortion debate, says Watts’ case is far from the first to criminalize a person for the outcome of their pregnancy, but could set a precedent for similar prosecutions and lawsuits if she is convicted.

Then down in South Carolina Newsweek reported…

A South Carolina woman arrested in February after she allegedly self-administered an abortion pill to terminate a pregnancy recently had her charges dropped.

The 13th Circuit Solicitor's Office told the Post & Courier of Greenville that it didn't prosecute the charge against the woman because of "insufficient evidence or another legal issue."

Then we have the case of  Cox down in Texas, can you imagine the indignity she had to go though? The embarrassment to have to go before a court to plead your case for an abortion for an nonviable fetus. The humiliation to publicly beg for an abortion.

Kate Cox Abortion Case Confuses Texas Women and Doctors
Kate Cox sued for permission to end her 20-week pregnancy after receiving a genetic diagnosis that made the baby’s survival unlikely. A judge’s ruling has given legal and medical experts little clarity about when an abortion may be administered.
Governing
By Marin Wolf, The Dallas Morning News
December 19, 2023


It was the test case that captured the nation’s attention.

Kate Cox, a 20-weeks pregnant mother from Dallas, needed an abortion, and quickly, her lawsuit said. With a serious genetic diagnosis that made it unlikely her baby would survive, Cox became the first woman since Roe vs. Wade fell to sue Texas for permission to end her pregnancy.

After a whirlwind, week-long legal battle, the Texas Supreme Court decided it would not decide. Physicians, not judges, are the only ones who can determine when someone qualifies for an abortion under a medical exemption, according to the court’s opinion.

[…]

Simultaneously, the court ruled Cox’s doctor’s assessment — that she qualified because of a risk to her health and future fertility — was not enough. Cox was denied an abortion just hours after she left the state to access the procedure elsewhere.

What is the result of all these Republican anti-abortion laws?

What impact this ruling will have on doctors and patients is yet to be seen, but the last two years offer some foreshadowing. Since Texas’ bans took hold, abortions have dropped to virtually none. Nationwide, abortions have slightly increased, while travel for abortions more than doubled.

Those who can afford to travel do so, while others have to look for someone to do a backroom abortion.

“Imagine you’re an OB-GYN and you specialize in high-risk pregnancies. This is not a situation which you encounter once in your life. You may see several of these situations a year,” Chandler said. “Sooner or later, if you gamble and say, ‘Well, I think it’s reasonable,’ you’re going to face a substantial cumulative risk that a local elected prosecutor is going to disagree with you and make your life quite challenging.

Meanwhile you have an elephant looking over your shoulder all the time and getting between your doctor and you.

My body, my choice!

My body, my choice!

My body, mu choice!

 

[/Editorial]