The Mean-Spirited Agenda of the Right

 

A photo appeared in the news this week of a demonstrator at an anti-abortion rally holding a sign which stated something like: ‘We are just getting started with Roe’. I do not know whether that was a threat or a promise, but either way, it is ominous. A war is being waged against American women and reproductive rights that will move on toward limiting contraceptive choices such as birth control pills or Plan B (the morning-after pill) if the more zealous have their way. Will tubal ligations (tying off the Fallopian tubes) become the only allowable choices to prevent pregnancy, or will that also come under scrutiny?

Maureen Dowd, writing in the New York Times on Sunday reported from Ireland, a “Catholic nation” that voted by a hotly debated national referendum in 2018 to allow abortion, after a series of horror stories of women and babies both dying in toxic pregnancies after abortions were denied. Women in Ireland had then traveled to England where abortions were permitted; now the Irish are wondering if Americans might travel to Ireland for safe abortion services. The women she interviewed described the atmosphere in Ireland when the referendum was being considered and explained it as not splitting the country because they created an empathetic network and civil discourse followed. They do not understand why more women are not in the streets and the President is not demanding Congress act for changes in the abortion laws. As they made clear, this issue is bodily autonomy and women’s rights. Women have spoken out and were encouraged to think about these issues in November when they vote. President Biden urged them to elect at least two more Democratic Senators so that our country is not paralyzed by the 50-50 Senate gridlock we now have.

Concern for a 10-year-old child who was impregnated by a rapist became another political football as the state authorities in Ohio claimed the story was untrue until the confessed rapist appeared in court. Right-wing media also reported that the story was fabricated and claimed that a police report was not made by the victims’ family, although they had filed it promptly. Then, of course, once proven wrong, they made much of the report that the rapist was an undocumented resident or “illegal alien” in their words. Since the girl’s pregnancy was just over the six-week allowed abortion limit in Ohio, her physician referred her to a doctor in Indiana. The girl’s family transported her to this neighboring state, where she received a safe abortion under medical care. Some anti-abortion activists claimed that she should have carried the pregnancy to term and that it would have been a blessing. Aside from the fact that a ten-year-old body often is not physically developed enough to safely carry a baby to term, a child that age is still a child and not socially mature enough to mother a baby. Authorities in Ohio even threatened to take the licenses of the physicians who cared for this child. Physicians are naturally becoming concerned about just what is legally allowed, as laws appear to differ from state to state in those states where restrictions are being put in place.

Approximately 30% of pregnancies end in a miscarriage often in the first trimester, frequently because of a problem with the ovum or implantation, such as with a tubal pregnancy. Some of the same medications used for a medical abortion are used to treat an ‘incomplete abortion’ or miscarriage where tissue remains in the uterus. A tubal pregnancy is a medical emergency and must be treated surgically and removed. Physicians are now concerned that these self-appointed medical watchdogs will interfere with their care for pregnant patients with normal complications. Already there are reports that emergency rooms do not want to care for patients bleeding from natural miscarriages and physicians who wonder how they can legally remove a tubal pregnancy that has no chance of progression in an abortion ban state. A ruptured tubal pregnancy could kill a mother if not treated promptly, but the procedure ends the pregnancy. When will legislators and preachers stop trying to practice medicine?

Crisis pregnancy centers (anti-abortion clinics) claim that a teen can carry a pregnancy to term and that her baby will find a loving family to adopt her child if she feels she cannot handle that responsibility. This belies the fact that mixed-race children and children of color are less likely to be adopted. These children frequently end up in the foster care system where they sometimes are shifted from one home to another and never become adopted; and according to the state, they are aged out at 18 and are left to fend on their own without resources. There are currently over 400,000 children in foster care in the United States. According to figures from the Annie E Casey Kids Count Foundation, approximately one-third are in the one to five-year-old range and 8% are babies. Racially, about 46% are white with Black and Hispanic children, each accounting for around 20%, while mixed-race children comprise about 8%, with other minorities making up the rest. That leaves about 60% of the children who are older than five and less likely to ever be adopted. While there are certainly many loving foster care families who take in many needy children or those with birth defects or who are emotionally impaired and give them loving care, there are also foster families who take in children mostly for the money they will receive from an overworked social welfare system that poorly vets their care. The foster care system also cares for children who have been removed from dangerous circumstances, such as those with addicted or abusive parents. These children often need psychological supports which our under-funded healthcare or Medicaid systems do not sustain adequately. Sadly, the pandemic has also increased the numbers of parentless children, many of whom are now living with relatives or older siblings.

Now, with no options for abortions in many of our poorest states and inadequate social safety nets for unwanted children born because of forced pregnancies, just where is the necessary care for these children coming from? The boxes of diapers, baby wipes, and formula promised to mothers in the crisis care centers seldom last past the six-week checkup, so where are these mothers to find the resources to care for these babies? Will we face a generation of even more divisions between the haves and have-nots if those who cannot afford to travel for abortion care out of Texas or Mississippi or Louisiana, for example, are the mothers then having children in those states? And despite Justice Amy Comey Barrett talking about safe havens at fire stations for unwanted babies, just how many will actually end up there? And they will not go immediately into warm, loving middle-class homes, no matter how many times that magic phrase is repeated.

Women seek abortions for a variety of reasons; not being able to afford yet another child is often one reason. Losing a college scholarship might be another; forced pregnancies may well result in forced poverty. Other reasons for abortion can be incest, abuse, or rape; some claim that these are excuses, but they occur more often than we know and are seldom reported to authorities. (The remark by Texas Governor Abbott that he would eliminate rape as an issue in Texas was laughable, but tragic. In 2021, Rolling Stone reports, around 16,000 rapes were reported in the state, with one-third stating the rapist was a family member. Now just how is this elimination going to occur?)

The Office of Population Affairs under Health and Human Services reports that teen pregnancies often interrupt the education of the mother who may then not graduate from high school and consequently have fewer opportunities to adequately support that child. The report further states: “Children born to adolescents are more likely to have poorer educational, behavioral, and health outcomes throughout their lives, compared with children born to older parents. However, like the challenges teen mothers face, the challenges their children face are largely explained by the mothers’ socioeconomic circumstances before having a baby. Moreover, the challenges for both mother and baby are more severe in the short term.”

Obviously, this nation is not caring well for those who are poor; nor is it caring appropriately for the poor who have children. There are Medicaid services and aid with maternal health care, but these are short-lived. Food stamps can only buy so much and the South is notoriously stringent with benefits. Inflation, such as we are seeing now, further diminishes the value of these social services. Yet the legislators and governors in these states are tripping over their tongues with rhetoric about preventing abortions and crafting heartbeat laws. Still, by their very actions, they set out to punish those children who are already living with reduced services and inadequate funding for mental health and preventive care.

Additionally, states reduce programs about sex education and instead promote abstinence programs that have never worked. In fact, a report by NPR shows that not only are they inadequate, but claims that they are also unethical, in that they fail to provide vital information about contraception and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases that teenagers often need. They cite an earlier study: According to a 2004 report prepared for House Democrats, language used in abstinence-based curricula often reinforces “gender stereotypes about female passivity and male aggressiveness” — attitudes that often correlate with harmful outcomes including domestic violence, the report notes.

The leader of the conservative group Concerned Women for America then claimed ‘that our culture has swung too far to the left and we as parents owe this abstinence education to our children so that they can delay sexual behavior until adulthood.’ (paraphrased,)

Today, many women see their rights being eroded in the area of bodily autonomy and wonder just what is next. Will so-called Covenant marriages be mandated or divorces become harder to get? Will women be punished for infidelity (aside from the fact that these acts take two)? If the states really think that they can restrict travel away from a state where an abortion ban is in place to another for abortion services, just what other restrictions can they propose? Will reporting on those who “aid and abet” a woman seeking her legal rights be enforced, and bounties paid? 

Of course, all of this is in parallel with a scandal detailing years of sexual abuse, which was ignored by those in charge of the Southern Baptist Convention, (the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.) many of whom told women to stay with their abusers or were the abusers themselves. Hundreds were charged, as reported by Terry Gross of NPR, over the last twenty years; many were repeat offenders. However, often just as the Catholic Church had done, these abusers have moved around, yet been kept in positions of authority. The church also preaches that women should be subordinate to men. These same churches are supporting abortion bans and crisis pregnancy centers.

Do you see just how absurd this might become? Margaret Atwood had a limited imagination when compared to some of these folks!

“Til next week-Peace!