Grassroots/Hank Kalet

Fetuses are Not Children

There are only two possible positions on abortion: One is that life begins at conception and that fetuses are children with rights; the other is that women should have control over their bodies.

One position erases women at the expense of the unborn. The other empowers women. There is only one place to stand.

Women are under assault from lawmakers in red states across the country. Alabama passed a sweeping abortion bill in May, following on the heels of Georgia’s vote to adopt a so-called “heartbeat bill” that ban abortions once a “heartbeat” is detectable, which could happen as early as six weeks. Earlier this year, similar bills were passed in Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Utah and Arkansas.

The bills are just the most extreme form of restrictions that have been enacted in the 46 years since abortion was made legal by the Supreme Court and conservatives began a campaign of picking away. There is a bans on the use of federal funds for abortion services, and many states ban the use of Medicaid funding, as well. Many states have mandated scripts for doctors, often requiring them to provide false information to women. In addition, doctors in many states have been forced to have unnecessary admitting privileges at area hospitals. Some states have adopted zoning laws and building codes that make it impossible for clinics to operate and that force women to travel impossible distances for treatment. There have been parental notification laws, criminal penalties for doctors and patients, unnecessary testing requirements, and so on.

As Leana Wen, president of Planned Parenthood, told The Guardian:

“If this sounds like a dangerous and dystopian future for women, it’s because it is. What was considered too extreme for state politicians just a few years ago is now becoming law in some states and the stakes could not be higher.”

Some of this has passed court muster and, while the most recent slate of bills appears unconstitutional, the US Supreme Court’s current composition offers a clue as to why these bills are making their ways through state legislatures now.

Conservatives have the most anti-abortion Supreme Court they have had in decades, since well before Roe v. Wade affirmed a woman’s right to choose. The final straw was the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as an associate justice to replace swing vote Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy was no pro-lifer, but his pragmatic approach to the issue meant that Roe remained precedent, even as states chipped away. Unless Chief Justice John Roberts shifts in a more pragmatic direction in an effort to protect the court from accusations of partisan or ideological bias, women have every right to be concerned.

As The Nation wrote in an editorial, anti-abortion activists both in and out of government are engaged in an effort to do more than chip away.

“The audacity of these measures is chilling, and that’s the whole point,” The Nation writes (https://www.thenation.com/article/abortion-roe-wade-scotus/). “Rather than simply testing Roe’s boundaries or finding ways to limit access while leaving the legal framework intact if hollow, these bans are a frontal attack on Roe. And there’s a very good chance they could succeed.”

The New York Times editorial board agreed:

“There is a strategy behind this bill’s remarkable cruelty, and its supporters have not been subtle about it,” the paper writes. “The bill’s sponsor in the Alabama House, Terri Collins, said that the legislation was designed to produce a legal case that could overturn Roe v. Wade. When asked the purpose of the bill on Tuesday, Clyde Chambliss, the Senate sponsor of the legislation, said, ‘So that we can go directly to the Supreme Court to challenge Roe v. Wade.’”

Supporters will say they are protecting babies, but as John Oliver said on his show in May, “a fetus is not a baby. In fact, at six weeks a fetus isn’t even a fetus; it’s an embryo the size of a pomegranate seed.”

This slate of “draconian legislation,” Jennifer Rubin, a conservative columnist, writes in the Washington Post, is a “cruel invasion of women’s autonomy in the most aggressive fashion imaginable” that is “the personification of the war on women.”

What these bills show is a lack of respect for women, who conservatives view as lacking real agency, as essentially being nothing more than children who should have less authority than the fetuses they carry.

Hank Kalet is a poet and journalist in New Jersey. Email, hankkalet@gmail.com; blog, hankkalet.tumblr.com; Twitter, @newspoet41 and @kaletjournalism; Instagram, @kaletwrites; Facebook, facebook.com/hank.kalet; Patreon, @newspoet41.

From The Progressive Populist, June 15, 2019

Populist.com