Even though a lot of my thoughts on our issues with patriarchy come from attempts to police the sexuality and gender of others, I think I can best make my points for this week by talking about abortion.
It is easy for someone who believes in chastity and values family to believe abortion is wrong, and never a good choice. It is similarly easy to feel justified in condemning those who believe differently, and even trying to make your way the law.
It is easy to feel virtuous about protecting the unborn.
All of that ease makes for some appalling, abhorrent behavior, made more disgusting by the smug self-righteousness.
Otherwise, explain to me how an attempt to protect life results in more death without saving a life.
Savita Halappanavar's child had no chance of living, but Savita could have lived.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar
Agnieska T.'s children died in the womb, but that they were already dead was not enough to allow her life to be saved.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/26/poland-death-of-woman-refused-abortion
Women in Nicaragua have died or been left waiting for death because of anti-abortion laws.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1647381/
Since Roe v Wade was overturned in the United States, we mainly have stories of near death, especially in Texas:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/16/health/abortion-texas-sepsis/index.html
Those are anecdotes. There is a general consensus that maternal mortality has increased, along with racism, which has a strong connection with maternal mortality in our country:
But the fight against abortion doesn't just kill and almost kill women. It harasses them. It makes it harder for them to get the health care they need because it intimidates doctors.
It adds danger and criminalization to miscarriages that may already be heartbreaking:
It tracks women who might be pregnant to make sure they can't travel to get an abortion, and it requests tracking the periods of high school students just in case they might get pregnant:
And even though those pregnancies should all involve a man, the tracking and the harassment and the prosecution all focuses on women.
It even allows abusive men to sue the women trying to escape them and their friends:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/05/04/texas-abortion-wrongful-death-countersuit/
https://www.axios.com/2023/03/11/abortion-texas-lawsuit-wrongful-death
If you were judging whether the people involved truly valued life versus valuing the ability to control others, the evidence has a strong slant toward control.
These stories are selected for that purpose, of course, but what if we were looking at it from the other side? What if we were looking for a way to truly demonstrate that we value life?
I hope to spend more time on that next week.
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