“Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.” ― Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
It’s been almost 5 months since the precedent of Roe was overturned by the SCOTUS and our trigger ban was put into place. On a warm and sunny day on June 29, 9:22 AM, our Attorney General used the stroke of his pen to take abolish privacy rights, personal choice, and freedom and access to health care for half the population. He made time stand still and the world a lot darker of a place for the women of Missouri. While abortion has always been a hot topic, in an area that is generally conservative and filled with churches on about every street corner. There’s always been the consensus that at the end of the day, a personal choice, and women should and do have the right to body autonomy. Granted, it wasn’t always openly talked, about due to nobody likes to air their dirty laundry. Personal business and folks around here are all about minding their own business. With god-awful agenda of misinformation through emotional manipulation about the topic or none at all in this part of the state. Lots of folks still have the assumption it’s a legal form of infanticide. Crazy huh? Well, first we have to look at the medical definition of an abortion and what it means.
Abortion by definition is the removal of pregnancy tissue, fetus, or placenta after 8 weeks of gestation. Most folks automatically jump to the conclusion that it means some horrific act of infanticide procedure due to the pictures that they're shown of the gestation period typically looking like the baby is at least a month old. That's probably not by accident as it helps with the lack of information, and folks don't have a full understanding that it’s a broad term for lots of different things that are legitimately used for the practice of obstetrics and women’s reproductive healthcare. For example, if you have a miscarriage and the body doesn’t pass pregnancy tissue usually dilation and curettage (D and C) to get out that tissues to keep health complications don’t occur. (i. e. sepsis) Or the removal of ectopic pregnancies that are never viable to begin with and deadly if left untreated, because the fertilized egg is attached to the wrong place.. And never mind that this kind of procedure is done directly after giving birth. So yes it can be argued that anyone that has given birth has had an abortion by definition. Now we can see why the “Pro-Life” doesn’t want anyone to know that because it would take away from their narrative that “women can’t make life decisions for themselves” and the emotional manipulation of the masses that has engulfed this whole topic going back to 1973. However, their new trope of theirs is using made-up terms like “Late-term abortion” or using conspiracy theorists' nonsense that women are waiting until their due date to get an abortion. It’s a deliberate lie to confuse and enrage folks on labor induction is which typically done with both a viable or nonviable pregnancy when complications arise. But according to the definition used by the “Pro-Life”, I have had three of those “due date abortions” one is in college, the other is a middle schooler, and the youngest is in kindergarten. So, the argument is utterly ridiculous. I can also say as a woman that no woman is willing to carry a fetus up to 40 weeks and decide “Oh well I don’t feel like I want this kid”. That’s not how that works and is illegal even when Roe was in place. Granted, most women are ready for the baby to pop out by the end of the third trimester, doesn’t mean they’re willing to commit infanticide. This crowd also deliberately confuses people on what a “late-term” actually means too. “Late-term” means anything after 24 weeks, and Roe even had the restriction of 24 weeks unless the mother’s life was endangered or the fetus wouldn’t be viable outside of the womb due to severe birth effects or genetic disorders. And, the statistics on that kind of abortion are extremely low, and the stories are heartbreaking. Most actual “choice” abortions are done in the first trimester around 13 weeks or so because sometimes it takes a little while to figure out that you’re pregnant due to “signs” that don’t always start at once. The body doesn't quite work like it does for Hollywood magic tells us it does.
So, you’re probably wondering how Roe and Missouri’s grotesque ban pertains to you if you’re not of childbearing age or just the average dude that doesn’t know much about the topic in general. Let’s first start by looking at the constitutional issues this ban brings on when it comes to individual rights. Individual rights like personal choice, privacy, etc – all set the conditions which define what is considered a person. So when one loses their right to privacy or the ability to make decisions for themselves this action turns them into living statues that are the property of someone else. In this case, it would be the property of the state government. What that means for you the reader, is the state of Missouri can now get all up in your business and make medical decisions for you whether you want it or not, and enforce that decision and there’s nothing you can do about it. Remember that vaccine mandates that everyone threw such a fit about and how “unconstitutional” and the SCOTUS agreed? Now the state of Missouri can legally enforce mandates like that and you have to follow it because, on June 24th of 2022, The state told us all that we are their property and our rights do not matter to them. We also have to understand that Roe is an umbrella term that covered a wide spectrum of various reproductive procedures for both men and women. You know things like Viagra, vasectomies, labor induction, tubal litigation, Dilation and curettage (used for miscarriages), IVF treatments, birth control, and the list goes on. It essentially covered any and everything that was medically related to the human reproductive system with it being strictly between you and your doctor. Now under this ban, Mo leg wants to put its brand of bigger government into your bedroom, and be a part of your most intimate moments and family planning.
Missouri’s trigger ban is quite something to behold. It’s one of the strictest bans in the entire US, and the only exception to this law is that a woman has to be dying before a doctor can treat her for pregnancy complications without the worry of being convicted of committing a felony. And that’s only after the doctors have been on the phone with lawyers for hours at a time, hoping their patient doesn’t die before it gets approved. Like in the recent story that made waves throughout the state. About a woman that was denied treatment for an unviable pregnancy and forced to travel across three states to get the health care treatment that she needed. Before the law, the hospital could have treated her as if she could have delivered the baby and said her goodbyes. But with this ban in place, she had to carry around a dying baby with no time to grieve the loss due to the restrictions. And while this law is active, we should prepare ourselves to see more of these tragedies and horror shows in the daily news cycles. This law also leaves open the possibility of a woman being charged with a felony should she have a miscarriage. As the legal definition in Missouri law is "Doing something with “Intent to destroy the life of an embryo or fetus in mother’s womb”. Yes, this is what the legal wording is the law itself. Not only will a woman face the possibility of being coming a criminal under this law but it also discourages women from seeking medical treatment for a miscarriage out of fear that she will be punished for something that is out of control. That lack of treatment can lead to infertility or death from inflection setting in. The law is going to cause a trail of dead women and broken families in its ungodly wake full stop. Also, I should point out that if Mary Elizabeth Coleman (the main engineer of this grand law) gets her way, women will also have travel restrictions and bans put on them to prevent them from leaving the state without first submitting a pregnancy test to the state authorities. Essentially, Mary Elizabeth would like to reenact the Slave Act of the 1850s but specifically target the women of Missouri. So she’s going to try to make the Constitutional 13th amendment "Great Again" by ignoring it altogether and trying to take away our 5th amendment right simultaneously - there’s that. Eventually, this will trickle down to every Missourian and not half the population. Like this trigger ban and your right to privacy. The current supermajority in control of Mo Leg won’t stop with women. No, they will come for every single Missourian that doesn’t fit into their worldview. And it won’t matter if you have an “R” in front of your name either. They already took your right to privacy away and have been busy taking away local control for years. If anything this law has emboldened them to do even more for the poor citizens of Missouri.
Whether you agree with abortion or not,-- Remember that so much more at play here than just abortion when it comes to Missouri and it's no longer a circle of hyperbolic rhetoric. It's happening right now, in the state of Missouri. All of our rights are on the line at this point until we can get better representation in our legislative body. And this is why we remember that to keep your rights, you have to be willing to fight for your neighbors too to make sure that Missouri can stay the land of “ Liberty and free” for all of us and not the select few like the supermajority in charge has in mind for the state.
Much Love and Peace out,
Jojo
Citation:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/10/15/missouri-abortion-ban-pregnancy-complications/10496559002/
Comments