New Bill Strips Women of Authority Over Their own Bodies

Raise your hand if you’re on your heavy day. Lift your blouse and rub on a stretch mark or 10 stretch marks that your bundle of joy left you with over a decade ago. Wink at a girl if that underwire is annoying the hell out of you right now.

These are just a few of the painful realities for women in this life. We endure. We tolerate. We refocus as best we can. What we cannot do is allow lawmakers to infringe on our basic civil liberties. 

Abortions after six weeks will now be illegal in the State of Georgia, thanks to House Bill 481, also known as the Heartbeat Bill. The new law, which will go into effect January 2020 not only bans abortion after six weeks "gestational age" (about two weeks after a missed period), but also contains a provision that declares that “unborn children are a class of living, distinct person” that require “full legal recognition.”

The objective is so blatant. These particular lawmakers want their ideals to become a test case and make it to the Supreme Court. All of this is likely intended to challenge Roe v. Wade.

Of course when men arise from sexual acts with women, their immediate thought is unlikely to be pregnancy, as it doesn’t directly affect them. For most women, discovery of pregnancy doesn’t often become realized until after six weeks. Imagine learning of an unexpected pregnancy and then being told you have no options, regardless of your health, your finances or even your desires.

Now, according to Georgia’s new law – upon discovery of pregnancy – it doesn’t matter whether the woman thinks continuing the pregnancy is in her best interest or not. She must go through with the pregnancy.

Criminalizing abortion is murder. In the so-called “land of the free,” lawmakers are doing their very best to limit women’s control of self and of body. It’s disgusting.

Now more than ever is the time for women to aggressively assert our wishes and vocalize our mistreatment. Men don’t live with the fear of pregnancy. Men cannot die because of a pregnancy. There are no immediate or lingering effects of pregnancy on a man’s physical body. So, why exactly do men believe themselves to have rights over women’s bodies?

I don’t make it a practice to argue with women who are pro-life, but I do often wonder about their motivation to be such. There are three white women on HB 481. How any woman can look at another woman or girl and determine that no matter the method of her conception or potential dangers to her person – she must continue the pregnancy is beyond me. My earnest belief is that most women who think this way only think this way because men told them that they should.

The bottom-line: NOT EVERYONE NEEDS TO HAVE CHILDREN. We read each day about innocent children being abused, raped, set fire to and inevitably killed by the people who bring them into the world.

Before you say it, yes I know that adoption is an option.

Imagine telling a 14 year-old, who has been raped by her uncle that she legally must endure nine months of pregnancy and God only knows how many hours of painful labor. Then, the God-fearing lawmakers tell her to celebrate the opportunity and good deed of handing that baby over to an awaiting couple. That couple stands desperately prepared to spend $5,000 to $40,000 for this baby via the adoption process. Because this baby was conceived through incest, he has a life of both physical disabilities and health issues ahead. The girl never reveals the name of her rapist. She dies mentally. The couple goes into debt and unknowingly creates unforeseen despair for years to come. Murder in the name of the law.

Our country sees several immigrants arrive each day. Many of their celebrated arrival stories mask journeys of pain and devastation. Mothers often travel with their teen daughters. The men they pay to help them cross the border sometimes sexually assault them both. Let’s assume that a mother forced to watch her daughter be raped repeatedly arrives, mentally defeated in the State of Georgia. Her daughter, who has only had maybe three menstrual cycles, misses two and she takes her to the first and most affordable clinic she can find. Doctors discover that she is eight weeks pregnant. Neither mom, nor daughter know the name of the rapist and in all likelihood will never see him again aside from haunting images of his face and his reckless abandon. New to the country, still learning how to attain citizenship, little to no funds and in the name of the law – the girl must have the baby. Murder in the name of the law.

There are some women in this country who have always dreamed of being mothers. All that they’ve wanted since girlhood was to be able to love and care for a child or children. Unfortunately many of these women plan their pregnancies and lose their unborn children to miscarriages. Many women have multiple miscarriages in fact. Imagine losing a baby that you wanted more than anything, and then having to prove to prosecutors that you didn’t purposely cause your own miscarriage. Trauma + Humiliation = Murder in the name of the law.

Desperate times will cause desperate women to do desperate things. A baby can change the entire course of a woman’s life. College, career, mental health plans can all be thrown off course because of an unwanted pregnancy. Some women will want these things more than a baby, and they will end a pregnancy to ensure their chance at such goals. Many women will seek unsafe abortions if abortion is outlawed in their home state. According to the new bill, a woman who miscarries because of her own conduct (ex: using drugs while pregnant, etc.) would be liable for second-degree murder, punishable by 10 to 30 years of imprisonment. Prosecutors may interrogate women who miscarry to determine whether they can be held responsible; if they find evidence of culpability, they may charge, detain, and try these women for the death of their fetuses. Imagine how many women will travel to a less established country to end a pregnancy and die there on those tables. If a Georgia woman even travels to another state for an abortion, she may be charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Murder in the name of the law.

My entire life I’ve lived with an unyielding conviction that I will not be pregnant unless I want to be pregnant. The older I get, the more I realize the marginalized society that I live in, which promotes and supports rape culture and the denigration of women. I still can’t quite fathom having something so personal and intimate as my body taken from me without my permission, but even more unnerving is the thought that if my belly were to swell with a baby – someone else gets to decide my fate. I know myself – that would surely be the end of me. Beyond my anxiety, all of my frustrations and my need to control the immediate situations around me – to have my bodily decisions dictated by a governing body would in essence kill me. Murder in the name of the law.

Isn’t it ironic how the same lawmakers who want to cut out school funding, restrict planned parenthood and so on are creating a culture in which more and more children will be born and neglected? The men creating these bills know little to nothing about the female body, outside of what they want from it. The women who support these men are pathetic.

HB 481 is nothing more than a toxic mixture of politics and personal beliefs and women are forever the maltreated.

We make personal decisions for our respective bodies each day: tattoos, piercings, medicines, drugs and hygiene practices. My body = my decision. Your body = your decision. Lawmakers proclaim to believe in God, claim they study the bible, but constantly overlook the mentions of Judgment Day.

Let women stand before God and explain our own decisions.