by Craig Wiesner – San Mateo Daily Journal – Monday April 30th, 2024
Trigger Alert: This column references sexual violence.
What if the first time you realized your 11 year old had been raped was when she started showing signs of pregnancy and then died from complications? It happened in Australia and Paraguay. Who can forget the 10 year old Oklahoma rape victim who fled to Indiana for an abortion? Last year a 13 year old Mississippi rape victim was forced to carry to term and is now a 7th grade mother. In Texas, a child rape victim’s parents can be sued if they traverse certain local Texas roads to leave the state for an abortion.
What if doctors determined that the fetus you were carrying was not viable, but said you had to wait for a miscarriage, with potentially grave harm or death while waiting for or during that miscarriage? An Idaho mother recently fled her state for this reason. What if pregnant women, in pain and bleeding, show up at emergency rooms and staff refuse to treat them? Dozens of women have been turned away in at least four states due to their anti-abortion laws. Last Wednesday the Supreme Court heard oral arguments about that very issue. Today, abortion under most circumstances is illegal in 24 states. But abortion opponents aren’t satisfied yet.
What if your child were raped, taken to the hospital for treatment and gathering evidence and you wanted to give her the morning after pill to prevent pregnancy but the state prohibited it? Justice Clarence Thomas, overturning Roe v Wade, opined that Griswold v Connecticut, affirming our right to contraception, should also be challenged. Since Roe was overturned, one medical journal estimates that thousands of women and girls who were raped in the 14 states with the tightest abortion restrictions became pregnant. Nearly 430,000 U.S. women and girls were raped in 2022. Some Republican legislators and organizations are working to make contraception illegal or harder to get. Proposed laws would deny women the right to have an IUD or take a morning after pill to prevent pregnancy.
What if I asked you to come up with a word to describe what it’s like to force a child, or any woman, who has been raped, to become pregnant and carry that pregnancy to term, or impose your will on anyone for whom staying pregnant might gravely harm or kill them, or turn away bleeding pregnant women from emergency rooms? Cruelty.
As a childhood sexual assault survivor this is personal. But it shouldn’t have to be.
Former president Trump brags about appointing three Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe. In its wake Republican legislatures, Attorneys General, and governors raced to enact and enforce extreme anti-abortion laws. Despite prominent Republicans claiming they would never ban contraception, Missouri Republican legislators tried to ban IUDs last year, one parrotting a Republican gubernatorial nominee in Michigan, saying that it is “healing” for rape victims to give birth. Louisiana Republican legislators tried to ban IUDs and the morning after pill. Iowa’s Republican Attorney General suspended funding for police or hospitals to provide the pill to rape victims.
How can anyone, knowing that over 1,000 people are raped every day, support an absolute ban on abortion and try to ban contraception? People are suffering, dying, because of these bans. Your religious belief may be that life begins at fertilization, which can guide YOUR decision about your body, not everyone else’s. An Indiana appeals court just ruled in favor of Jewish plaintiffs saying that state’s anti-abortion law interfered with THEIR religious freedom.
86% of Americans support an individual’s right to prevent and if necessary end a pregnancy resulting from rape or a woman’s health or life being at risk. They believe such decisions should be made by women and their doctors. 86% of Americans also support IVF (In Vitro Fertilization), but Alamaba’s Supreme Court, in highly religious language, declared personhood for frozen embryos, threatening prosecution for blastocysts not successfully implanted. Their legislature and governor quickly fixed that, drawing the ire of anti-abortion organizations. Many Republican politicians are softening their anti-abortion stances. Christianity Today’s editor humorously quipped that Republican politicians are anti-abortion “except in the cases of rape, incest or declining poll numbers.”
I’m thankful that Californians have reproductive freedom. We’re also a sanctuary state, where people from other states can get reproductive and gender-affirming care. Our sanctuary laws protect doctors and others within our state from criminal and civil penalties states like Texas are trying to impose beyond their borders. We need national legislation affirming bodily autonomy and medical decision-making freedom and we need to move mountains to reduce sexual violence.
Do you think November’s election doesn’t matter and, that both parties are the same? Think again. Women’s and girl’s lives depend on you. Organize! Volunteer! Speak Out! Vote!
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Craig Wiesner is the co-owner of Reach And Teach, a book, toy and cultural gift shop on San Carlos Avenue in San Carlos.