For some reason people believe that your privacy belongs to them. The recent law in Texas requires menstruation police, keeping track of everyone's period. Miss a period and produce a baby or go to jail. Other countries do this, but we consider them uncivilized or police states. I rarely kept track of my spouse's periods, but in Texas each individual is charged with tracking their neighbor's fertility. Thanks legislature, everyone wanted that job.
Fear of prosecution has ended abortions in Texas. At least that's what anti-abortionists thought. In reality, there are still coat hangers in Texas. Women will die from botched abortions, women will travel to other states, and some women will be forced to raise children they do not want. Making abortion illegal does not bring it to an end, as an example the "War on Drugs" was lost by the government. Several states have legalized recreational marijuana while men rot in jail for having a few seeds in the car. Marijuana is dispensed through medical doctors, writing prescriptions for a schedule one drug. Oregon has decriminalized hard drugs, referring users to treatment instead of jail.
But abortion, a medical procedure, is understood by the public even less than marijuana. I have an unusual insight, my partner's mother devoted years to ending safe abortions and is actually the person responsible for the lie that abortion can cause cancer. I even fell for that one once.
The overwhelming percentage of abortions are not surgical, but those are the pictures the anti-abortionists enlarge into posters. Late term abortions are only performed when either the parent's life is threatened, or the life of the offspring is questionable.
Most anti-abortion laws restrict abortion after the embryo develops a pulse, usually called a heart beat even though the heart has not been created yet. This happens around six weeks, when most women are discovering that they really are pregnant. I have had partners miss periods without being pregnant, but now if you're a day late you have to have plans. If you wait to miss two its too late.
Right now it appears that the Supreme Court is about to overrule Roe v Wade. Should that take place about twenty states have in place laws that go into effect if Roe falls. so let's back up a minute.
Abortion is not "favored" by anyone. It is a necessary evil. Although I actually knew a woman who considered it last line birth control, that view is unique. "Pro-abortion" just means that you want the choice available. But let's look at some numbers.
Between fifty and seventy percent of Americans are in favor of legal abortions, depending on the polling service . Since this is a democracy the first question is why is there legislation that is contrary to the desires of the majority?
One in four women will have an abortion before they turn forty five. Abortion is not some rare practice that only takes place somewhere else. If your friends haven't told you about their experience, it might be because they don't trust you with the information. Women are shamed for using a legal medical procedure.
Deaths due to legal abortions are rare, many years having a total of one or two. On the other hand, deaths from illegal abortions are far more common. As illegal abortions often take place in underdeveloped countries we can only estimate what the effect would be in America. A twenty one percent increase doesn't sound like much when your base was two, we have advanced medical facilities to save people who would otherwise die. In underdeveloped countries, where abortion is either illegal or unobtainable, two hundred and twenty women die for every one hundred thousand abortions, with a world wide total of twenty two thousand eight hundred deaths from unsafe abortions every year.
And now the United States of America can take its place among underdevoped countries.
There is clearly a majority of uninformed lawmakers. We can see this with most social legislation, senior U.S. Senators have expressed a lack of knowledge about marijuana other than the film Reefer Madness which was made in 1936. It's a schedule one drug so it must be dangerous if you haven't been exposed to the reality that no one, ever, has overdosed on marijuana. And "everyone knows" that abortion causes cancer, unless they have read one peer reviewed article.
So this weekend, my partner and I will travel to the state capitol, Harrisburg, to take part in a protest demanding women in Pennsylvania have the choice of whether or not to abort. We will be joining busloads from around the state, and probably end up on some newscast. People will talk about it for a while, but not for long. No one really likes to talk about abortion, they would rather it be invisible. I don't talk much about some of the less pleasant things I have done, but I am not ashamed of them. Don't confuse silence with shame.
In the eighties, when AIDS was blossoming, there was a saying, "Silence equals Death." It is still true. Speak up, talk about your beliefs with folks who don't agree. America is falling apart because not enough people talk, assumptions are made. Let your legislators see that they are out of touch, because they are the ones who need to pass laws protecting those seeking abortion.
I will never need an abortion, but I have and will know people that do. I don't want to let them down with "It didn't affect me so I didn't do anything."
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