“You do not finally win a state of freedom that is protected forever. It doesn’t work that way.” – Coretta Scott King
I’ve shared it before, but that particular sentiment has become even more apt in recent days.
A couple weeks ago, one of our senior dogs died at home peacefully in her sleep. It’s the most you can hope for an elderly animal, but we were still caught off guard. Her sister’s death a year prior was an even bigger surprise when her health rapidly deteriorated prior to a scheduled appointment that was bumped up, only to culminate in a trip to the ER and euthanasia. Our remaining dog, another senior, is hanging in there. For all we know, she could have three days or three years. One way or another it always comes as a surprise, and it never gets easier.
A week after that Justice Ginsberg died, and within hours, hateful men were gleefully rubbing their hands together as the prospect of filling her seat with an unqualified justice who will overturn healthcare protections in the midst of a pandemic, including reproductive healthcare, and to undermine common sense gun reform and reverse civil rights…because nothing says pro-life like making it as difficult as possible for women to safely bring children into the world, and raise them to adulthood.
The whole pro-life/pro-choice framing is inherently dishonest, devoid of nuance or any basis in science and reality. This became especially apparent in recent years when politicians began lying about grieving families whose dying newborns received palliative care in their final moments or days. These were wanted pregnancies that ended poorly despite their best efforts. Even if I didn’t know people who delivered dead or dying babies, I’d have empathy for the families. That they have had to air their anguish in defense of others who may go through the same thing sickens me.
Abortion has steadily declined for years, even and especially in states with less reproductive healthcare restrictions due to better access to birth control and education. What has not significantly declined is maternal and infant mortality rates in wanted pregnancies, particularly in states with higher rates of poverty. The US lags behind other countries in both regards. Where’s the pro-life concern for that?
Outcomes are worse for mothers and infants of color regardless of income.
When abortion is criminalized, women who miscarry can find themselves subject to prosecution, with some demographics more likely to be targeted than others. It even threatens medical treatment for women with wanted pregnancies when things go wrong.
I decided to give birth control another go in 2016 even though I’m high risk for breast and ovarian cancer, and the patch gave me heart palpitations. I’m also high risk for having multiples, and, consequently, things going wrong. At the end of the day, my children need their mom more than another sibling or two. I didn’t want to chance a high risk pregnancy so I went on a birth control that doesn’t increase my cancer risk as much as other methods.
Once I had to go to Planned Parenthood instead of my regular OBGYN to get refills when my husband was laid off from a job providing IT services (for a healthcare provider, no less). I had to wait for these creepy men in fatigues lurking outside the building to go away, and I also found out I didn’t have to delay my mammogram half a year because PP could have connected me to a service providing free screenings.
Speaking of cancer, I still remember when former house speaker Paul Ryan bemoaned middle age women with cancer sharing an insurance pool with healthy twenty year olds. Never mind that it’s how insurance works, those twenty year olds won’t be twenty forever. They may be a middle aged cancer patient someday. I’ve been getting screened since my twenties.
I don’t see the point in granting the unborn personhood only to strip it from half of us once we’re here, or when we reach an age people like Paul Ryan no longer deem us valuable. That, and the unborn aren’t any safer for it, either. It’s only ever been about control.
Real ways to save lives and make the world worth being born into include:
- supporting scientific research and development
- identifying reasons for discrepancies in care and medical outcomes
- improving access to services for children and adults with special needs
- improving access to education and birth control
- improving access to affordable, quality healthcare for pregnant women, newborns, and people in general
- enhancing family medical leave protections and postpartum care
- reinstating regulations against pesticides proven to cause miscarriages
- demanding more robust laws and prevention of sexual assault
- improving access to mental healthcare
- common sense gun reform
Everything on the list is endangered by Mitch McConnell stacking the courts, including the highest court in the land, with unqualified ideologues. Oh, the president incited violence on national television, but Biden told him to shut up, so they’re basically the same (yeah, no).
Still no justice for Breonna, but her ex refused to implicate her in exchange for a reduced sentence, so that’s something.
Refugees and immigrants had forced hysterectomies, a form of genocide.
The All Lives Matter crowd has a weirdly restrictive definition of ‘all’.
