TW: this article discusses abortion, rape and mental health.
How do you restrict people’s rights that are protected by law? By using moral justifications to make them so unaffordable that they cannot be accessed.
This may sound absolutely incomprehensible. Surely this can’t be how it happens? But it’s exactly what is happening to restrict abortions in Texas.
The new legislation HB 214 will restrict abortion by forcing it to be removed from all insurance policies — be they private, state offered or through the Affordable Care Act (dubbed Obamacare). State legislators defend this decision again by citing religious beliefs. HB 214 will “prevent those with moral, religious and philosophical objections” from having to pay for abortion. State governor Abbott said in a press release that he is “proud to sign legislation that ensures no Texan is ever required to pay for a procedure that ends the life of an unborn child.”
There are absolutely no exceptions to the law either, so it will still apply in cases of rape, incest and fetal abnormality. Pregnant people will be forced to carry a foetus to full term despite the impact that will have on their mental health, not mention their bodies. It’s probably no coincidence that the rate of maternal mortality in Texas has recently doubled, making this the highest in the world.
“The GOP seriously think we regard abortion in the same way as we do buying more data on our phones when we run out.”
Whilst they can’t outright ban abortion (thanks to Roe vs Wade), they can make it virtually unattainable for certain groups of people. The Hyde Amendment already blocks the procedure happening on Medicaid, which most people on low income rely on. HB 214 will restrict it across the board of insurance, and instead abortion will be offered as an add on that you can buy in case you ever need it. Yes, that’s right. A monthly bolt on to cover abortion in case you use all your protection that month. The GOP seriously think we regard abortion in the same way as we do buying more data on our phones when we run out.
The Republican Party have such a skewed view of people who seek abortion. As if we use it as another form of birth control, and if we just kept our legs shut we wouldn’t have gotten ourselves knocked up in the first place. That rape doesn’t count because the body has ways of expelling sperm that is put there by rape, and that if women didn’t dress like sluts we wouldn’t have these problems in the first place.
“These men can’t even tell us what a uterus is or if they have one.”
What’s even worse is that many of the legislators (mostly men) know nothing about the reproductive system. Along with comments a such as “bleeding out her you-know-where”, and not being able to say tampons in a discussion about the tampon tax, these men can’t even tell us what a uterus is or if they have one. When asked if he knew what a hysterectomy was, Republican representative Smithee said he didn’t know if he could “medically have that”.
From personal experience, an abortion is not something you can plan for. Nobody goes on a night out with the thought that if they hook up with someone and get pregnant, they can just nip down the clinic for a quick baby killing pill — yet that’s how they see us. An abortion, in my experience, has a great effect on mental health, and whilst I wish I hadn’t have had to go through it I knew that getting rid of the foetus put there by an abusive low-life was a safer solution than keeping it. There’s no doubt in my mind that an abortion saved my life.
But this is a story the GOP and men who try to control our bodies will never listen to. They will never accept that a female’s life is more important than an unborn child because women rank so low in the pecking order to them.
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Image via Office of the Texas Governor.
