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She is sixteen and pregnant. Still in school and lacking professional skills, she would not be qualified to adopt a child, but she could be forced to deliver the fetus to term.
She is a mother who wants another child, but in the third trimester of her pregnancy she learns that her fetus has serious organ abnormalities and will die soon after birth, but is denied a late abortion.
She is a rape victim who suffers from post-traumatic stress that makes her unable to work, but she will be forced to give birth.
She has been sexually abused by her uncle for years and is now pregnant with him, but she cannot have an abortion.
Each of these women represents many others. They are the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about as the United States moves closer and closer to draconian restrictions on abortion, and ultimately the death of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution protects a woman’s freedom to choose to abort without undue government restriction.
Since the Supreme Court ruling, a growing number of states have worked hard to enact laws and regulations that limit whether and when a woman can get an abortion. The restrictions to reduce abortions are designed to challenge Roe v. Wade in the hope that they will be canceled. They include measures such as imposing unnecessary medical and hospital prescriptions, setting pregnancy limits, preventing so-called “partial birth” (late term) abortions, enacting funding restrictions and insisting on counseling, waiting periods and the involvement of state-mandated parents.
But we have never seen abortion restrictions like the ones that now exist in 45 states, making 2021 a “year on track to be defined as the worst in the history of abortion rights,” as the Guttmacher Institute notes.
Various state laws, from Arizona to Arkansas, are a nightmare, but none are as astounding as the laws of Texas. Starting January this year, patients are to receive state-led counseling, including information designed to discourage abortion, coupled with mandatory wait times. There are constraints on various insurance policies, including those included in the Affordable Care Act. Parental consent is required and patients should have an ultrasound at least 24 hours before obtaining an abortion while the supply shows and describes the fetal image to the patient.
Additionally, in May, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a fetal heart rate abortion bill that bans abortion as early as six weeks, long before most women know they are pregnant. . This bill is expected to come into force in September, although it and many other proposed laws are being challenged in the courts.
No wonder Texan Paxton Smith, a major in his high school class, found his graduation speech viral. With tremendous courage, she “aborted” her approved speech and spoke eloquently, noting from the outset that the six-week “Heartbeat Act” had just been introduced.
“I cannot abandon this platform to promote appeasement and peace when there is a war against my body and against my rights. A war against the rights of your mothers, a war against the rights of your sisters, a war on the rights of your daughters. We cannot remain silent, “she told the crowd, noting that medical authorities said the fetal heart rate argument was misleading.
Shortly after Smith gave his speech, a newspaper in Spokane, Wash., Revealed that several months earlier, a woman who had miscarried at a Spokane hotel had been subjected to ‘an investigation by the police which found suspicious that she did not meet them at the hospital as they had requested. . A search warrant followed because cops believed she might be guilty of criminal child abuse. Ultimately, the investigation was closed. But women are actually in jail here and in other countries accused of feticide following miscarriage.
It doesn’t have to be that way. There are many models in which the right of women to exercise control over their bodies is not in the hands of the state. The Netherlands is one of those countries. Abortion there is free on demand and yet they have the lowest abortion rate in the world, while complications and deaths from abortion are rare. Contraception is widely available and free, and abortion is covered by the national health insurance scheme. Sex education starts early and Dutch adolescents have less frequent sex from an older age than American adolescents; their pregnancy rate is six times lower than ours.
Why, then, but for Paxton Smith, do we never hear media reports on the critical issue of abortion, which men of power embrace with the force of institutionalized misogyny? Why is the current administration being silent on an issue of this importance when three-quarters of Americans want Roe v. Wade stays put, citing her as a key question affecting who will get their vote? Why is the American public so ready to give up a basic human right that can affect us all?
Why, Mrs. Smith might ask, do we remain silent?
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