Monday Musing 7/3/23-post Dobbs

I have begun and discarded this post so many times. I have many questions and many, many, many concerns after Dobbs was decided just over a year ago.

But what can I say about the hellscape that is maternal medicine in this country?

I have bookmarked 1080 articles from various news outlets about abortion. Who can no longer access it at all, who can access with severe restrictions, who is fleeing to another state for the healthcare that they can no longer get in their own state.

The exceptions to save a woman’s life are not worth the paper they are printed on. People are dying, have died, and will continue to die.

Doctors are afraid of prosecution if they stray from the very, very narrow ledge they are on.

Mothers are afraid of complications with their pregnancy.

Women are mad about losing control over our own bodies with good reason.

Again, I can’t make you understand about what this supreme court has done to us with the flick of a pen and a smug, oh, so smug, decision document that was written by the architect of this madness.

Many states are jumping on the bandwagon. Including North Carolina, where I live. They saw the backlash about the “heartbeat” bills. No, it’s not a heart beat, it is electrical activity in what will become the heart. And they decided in their patriarchal wisdom that if the time is DOUBLED to 12 weeks, what would women object to? After all they added SIX entire weeks to the decision process. Of course, they put up roadblocks such as how many visits a women, who may not be able to afford or take time off from her work, has to have with their doctor. I’ve written about it before. 12 weeks is an arbitrary number they made up in their heads. More important information can be gotten at the anatomy scan after 18 weeks such as fetal abnormalities, but sure, 12 weeks is more than enough time (sarcasm, dripping in condescension).

Slow clap.

You sure have shown women who is boss. Who is control of them. Who taught you to be afraid of the female?

What about the infants, inter-uretero or otherwise, who are doomed to be tortured until they die after birth?

I have not heard one peep from the legislatures who are rushing to judgement about the inhumane torture of these infants. Those who are born to die, horribly, gasping for breath, their heart struggling to keep up with its new demands when the infant was never meant to survive out of the uterus. What about those American citizens? Who speaks for them.

What is it? Are you anti-abortion and pro-torture?

Who takes care of these unwanted babies?

Who pays for their futile medical care?

Who pays for their funerals? Which some states have oh so helpfully put into laws.

The African-American maternal death rate has skyrocketed. Some of these are partner violence, and some are forcing a woman to carry a doomed child who is poisong to their host.

We should be ashamed.

And mad. We should be mad.

Vote like your life depends on it.

Because, if you are a woman, it does.