It has been just over 10 weeks since Roe v Wade was overturned in the Dobbs decision. And the news about abortion and desperation in some states keep getting darker and more sinister.
I mean it was bad enough to be informed that a woman’s worth is only based on what she can create and carry in her body. You can extrapolate and say that a woman’s worth is only her womb. That she has no decision power of what is carried within her womb, or when. To carry the idea to its conclusion women without a womb because of surgery or genetics and women who have hit menopause are worthless. Not the girls who have not yet started their periods yet; they still have value because of the potential yield bearing of the womb that is still under construction and not ready for use.
Insert eye roll here.
In other news, a 16-year-old in Florida was denied an abortion because the court felt she was too immature for an abortion. Wait… too immature for an abortion but mature enough to raise a child? Or did the state want to take the child upon delivery and give it someone more mature (worthy)? This is Handmaid’s Tale level bullshit.
insert eye roll here.
A man in Texas decided that abortion care in states where it is illegal could be a good business model. A for profit business model. He outfitted a boat in federal waters off the coast of Texas with necessary medical equipment, healthcare professionals, and doctors and started providing abortions to those left without care in Texas and surrounding states. This is a novel approach, and, so far, he is not charging exorbitant fees. But even he says can you believe this is what it has come to? The level of secrecy and subterfuge for these women. There are sonogram codes, they have to leave their phones behind on shore, they are motored out to the boat for treatment. It is absurd. Not that someone saw an opportunity, but that these women have to go through this for medical care on their own bodies they no longer have a say over in their state.
In neighboring Louisiana, a mother has been told that her fetus has a death sentence outside of the womb. The fetus is growing without the top of the head. This is not compatible with life and is termed acrania and is not one of the narrow reasons that someone decided were the reasons for an abortion. If we were to name every single thing that was terminal for a fetus, we would be here for a long time. And still circumstances would arise where the body decided on a new fatal flaw.
Another eye roll; can I see my brain yet?
And the political person out west who does not understand why the woman even needs to be involved. After all, everyone knows that there is no connection between a fetus and a woman. Or the always popular just reimplant the ectopic pregnancy crowd. Say it with me; this is not a thing, this has never been a thing, this will never be a thing in a human body. And how do you propose to study this? Torture those that will die?
Women die from ruptured ectopic pregnancies. And now the state and the court are involved in deciding who gets care for this true medical emergency. A woman with an ectopic pregnancy was sent home to “wait it out” because there was still “cardiac activity” and the hospital could not do the surgery. On a non-viable pregnancy. That can be lethal to the woman.
My head hurts.
In a ray of hope some teens are running their own sex ed. Because the adults in their lives have failed them and failed to provide accurate information that is not abstinence. Which is withholding critical health information from children so they can make well-informed decisions about their body. Because abstinence only sex education does not work, as has been shown time and time again. We can only hope that they are using correct information, because the adults sure aren’t. The teens in Tennessee who are the subject of a Washington Post article are. And sharing with other teens who want to know. Because if you know, you can protect yourself in this scary time.
These laws are terrifying to doctors and hospitals because they are so capricious. And in many of them, the doctor or the hospital can be held liable and go to jail. And probably lose their license to practice medicine. This is how it is impacting hospitals and healthcare workers. Even if this is a practitioner in a state that has not enacted laws. Even nurses I know from these states feel that it is coming, and they say abortion hasn’t been outlawed in their state YET.
But what society does not take into consideration is that they are torturing the child that has fetal abnormalities, mostly fatal. No conversation has been had about that. Women who would have otherwise had an abortion just to decrease suffering in their child and can no longer do so. Where is that conversation? Some of these children are born into a world where all they know is pain and suffering. Who is speaking up or advocating for them? Or advocating for their parents who know that their child is suffering a needless, cruel fate?
It remains and has always been about control and the old white men who fear losing it.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 