If a Missouri lawmaker has her way, the state would allow its residents to stalk pregnant women and sue anyone helping them get an abortion out of state.
We know this idea sounds ludicrous at best and fascist at heart, but it’s an escalation of the war against women being waged in a number of GOP-controlled states.
Anti-abortion soldiers have been preparing for this for decades, normalizing the idea that women cannot make their own medical decisions, or control their own bodies or destinies. In this worldview, a two-celled zygote has more value and rights than a living, breathing girl or woman. Their extreme religious values must be imposed by the threat of criminality on everybody capable of carrying a child, regardless of the individual’s beliefs.
Republicans have been laying the foundation for these measures for years.
Missouri was home to U.S. Rep. Todd Akin, who infamously said victims of “legitimate rape” rarely get pregnant. This is the state where the Department of Health tracked the menstrual cycles of women seeking health care at Planned Parenthood. It’s the same state that recently tried to ban IUDs, a form of birth control. We are among the states with the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.
This forces residents to seek abortion care across state lines, which is a new frontier for anti-choice zealots.
The Supreme Court is likely to roll back the protections of Roe v. Wade this summer. Proposed legislation reveals the mentality of the GOP that has taken over our state and others around the country and the direction they are headed.
Where do we think this ends? Each election cycle, Republican candidates need to move further to the right to appeal to a base that has lost touch with reality and the values of freedom and human dignity. How long before birth control pills are contraband in red states? When will we see a proposal that doctors must report pregnancy outcomes to a state database for tracking and criminal investigation? When will doctors be required to turn in patients who miscarry?
There is a danger in ignoring or dismissing each new attack as too dystopian or absurd to be implemented. A few years ago, we would have said the same about the draconian and cruel Texas bounty law, enacted in September, that restricted abortion. The effect is to strike fear in the hearts of anyone who must deal with an unwanted pregnancy.
The state is watching. Your neighbors are watching.
If you live in one of these states, a girl or woman of child-bearing age can be raped and have no say in what happens to her. She can face heart-wrenching medical choices that would change the entire trajectory of her life and be trapped.
The sad reality is that things will get worse before they get better. Missouri, and most of the country, wasn’t like this even 20 years ago.
Pamela Merritt, executive director of Medical Students for Choice, an independent nonprofit, says a law like this would target more than the lives of people who face an unplanned pregnancy. It would allow bullies and abusers to file a ruinous lawsuit against a college student who drives a desperate friend across the river for an abortion in Illinois. It would threaten the accreditation of medical schools that must provide abortion training to students. Why would doctors or nurses practice in a state that would criminalize them for providing health care to women?
Missouri was among the handful of states that experienced their slowest decade of growth ever beginning in 2010. Economic development is tied to growth.
“Dystopian hellscapes are not where innovation happens,” Merritt said.
We cannot let our daughters stay in a state that treats them like second-class citizens, where their opportunities are limited and the government dictates their most private medical decisions.
For those of us who have raised bright, ambitious, compassionate daughters in places like this, it is a heartbreaking realization. My daughter left home for college last year, and I’ve missed her more than I could have imagined.
But those fortunate enough to find safer and more promising states must be allowed to go.
The fundamental question facing the decent men and women of Missouri is: Do we want our daughters and grandchildren to have a future in our state?
If so, this is our fight.