Republicans are kicking the door open on anti-abortion laws — and it’s low-income women who are suffering

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/04/2022 (1002 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I remember, as a teenager, being absolutely and unequivocally opposed to abortion.

By my mid-20s, I’d flipped to the opposite end of the opinion spectrum — absolutely and unequivocally supportive of abortion on demand.

Decades later, I’m certain only of one thing: While debate continues to rage — if not in Canada — about when personhood begins, there’s no question of whether a woman is a person or not. A woman is a sentient being, living and breathing. So female personhood, not fetal personhood, should be manifest. Because nobody can definitively aver when life begins — not philosophers or theologians or scientists.

The blinding conviction that many activists on both sides bring to bear is not helpful. I understand the alarm from pro-choice advocates that any softening of position will lead to steadily encroaching and eroding limitations. When anti-choice zealots get a foot in the door, they’ll move heaven and earth to kick it wide open.

What makes them so maniacally devoted to the so-called rights of the unborn? Religious beliefs perhaps, for many. But then I think of those passionately opposed to the death sentence, holding vigils outside prisons where a convict is being executed. It is a similar fervency, I suppose, a moral righteousness. That the United States remains among the 55 countries still allowing murder by the state is repellent.

Although, yeah, I’d have hanged Hitler. I might even hang Vladimir Putin. You see? I can qualify anything — also known as moral equivalence.

Americans kill people but they worship fetuses. The absolutism of abortion as vile and, increasingly, criminal in nearly all instances, is dramatically shifting the landscape in the U.S., even before the Supreme Court hears a case later this year regarding Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, which could roll back Roe v. Wade. In fact, they’re likely to do exactly that, given the court’s majority-conservative composition and apparent willingness to undo decisions rendered by its predecessors. Roe v. Wade was the landmark 1973 decision in which the highest court in the land ruled that the U.S. Constitution protects a woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction.

On Tuesday, Oklahoma’s state legislature approved Senate Bill 612, a near-total ban that would make performing an abortion illegal, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $100,000 (U.S.) fine. A felony for doctors and anyone else facilitating the procedure. The bill was passed 70-14 in under five minutes, with no debate and with hardly any pro-choice proponents even aware of what was afoot.

Even as, outside the capitol, some hundred abortion rights advocates had gathered for a “Bans Off Our Bodies” rally, expressing opposition to other abortion bans that had been proposed in this session. “They gaveled the bill into session and voted on it in the time it took to set up our rally,” complained a dismayed Olivia Cappello, press officer for state media campaigns at Planned Parenthood, as quoted in the Washington Post.

It needs only signing by Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who’s on the record as saying he’ll scrawl his signature when the bill lands on his desk. Indeed, Stitt has vowed to sign “every piece of pro-life legislation” that comes before him, to protect the pre-born.

The law, banning abortion at any stage of pregnancy, makes an exception only if the mother’s life is in danger.

Immediately afterward, a concurrent resolution was passed which would recognize the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision as a “Day of Tears”, when flags will be flown at half-staff. In memory of all the “dead babies.”

The bill could still be struck down by state courts but will more probably hinge on the outcome before the Supreme Court.

Oklahoma’s legislation mimics a Texas law — but takes it further — that was passed last year and bans abortion after six weeks, a point where many women might not even realize they’re pregnant. The Texas bill — dubbed the Fetal Heartbeat, Preborn Child Protection Act — forbids anyone providing an abortion for a pregnant woman when a fetal heartbeat can be detected, except in the case of a medical emergency, rape or incest, if “the crime has been reported to law enforcement.” The Oklahoma version doesn’t even wait for a heartbeat, which can be detected around the six-week mark; it applies to conception. At that juncture it’s not even a fetus; it’s an embryo.

But the Texas legislation would allow virtually any private individual to sue a person believed to have violated the law, so not just abortion providers but anyone who “aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion” or merely “intends to engage in the conduct described by this act.” Which could be wielded even against a family member counseling a woman to obtain an abortion.

Since 2018, 11 states have proposed heartbeat bills; since 2019, such bills have passed in Ohio, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina and Texas. And sure, abortions have dropped by some 60 per cent in the Lone Star State since the bill came into effect last Sept. 1. That doesn’t necessarily mean fewer abortions are being performed — the abortion blockade in Texas led to an 800 per cent increase of abortion seekers in five neighbouring states.

It’s low-income women, primarily, who will suffer — those who can’t afford to travel to a state where an abortion can still be obtained.

Oh, but the Oklahoma law won’t punish the women who’ve sought or managed to get an abortion, its supporters emphasize. Which hasn’t stopped Republicans from tacitly or overtly characterizing women who want an abortion as reckless, selfish or promiscuous. Rather than your sister, your daughter, your kid’s teacher, your co-worker, the bus driver, the woman who coaches the soccer team, the woman impregnated by an abusive partner …

Rep. Wendi Stearman, who sponsored the bill, told The Oklahoman: “House Bill 4327 does not end abortion, but it will induce compliance because no abortion provider will violate it and risk a lawsuit.”

Said smugly.

Rosie DiManno is a Toronto-based columnist covering sports and current affairs for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @rdimanno