By Clint Harris
The right to an abortion—a Constitutionally affirmed right from January 22, 1973 until June 24, 2022—is literally on the ballot in 10 states.
Whether analyzed as a “right to privacy” or “medical care autonomy,” the rights of women as independent persons (including to have an abortion) is on the ballot across the country in every state and US elected office—from judge to legislature to The President of The United States.
It is well documented that the hot mess that we are living in since Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision is costing women their lives.
The so-called exception for life of the pregnant women has been ineffective in protecting women’s health and sometimes their lives.
- Providers and others just don’t make the exception or they make it very late. This past December, The Texas Supreme Court stayed a lower court's order that would have permitted a pregnant Dallas woman—whose fetus had a lethal abnormality—to get an abortion. The order came in response to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's request for the high court step in to intervene.1
- While she was able to leave the state for medical care, another woman died after doctors in a Georgia hospital refused to perform the procedure because of their own legal exposure. Georgia’s abortion ban outlaws the miscarriage procedure she needed, making it a felony to perform except in cases of managing a “naturally occurring” miscarriage.2
- An Oklahoma woman with a non-viable, partial molar pregnancy had bleeding caused by a rupture of a pre-cancerous cyst on her uterus in February 2023. “The best advice we can give you, is to go sit in the parking lot until you bleed out,” the doctors told her “and we will be ready to help you when that happens.”3 There are other examples and they are tragic, heart wrenching, and completely preventable.
Other exceptions for rape and incest also are ineffective.
- A study published this past January in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine estimated that there were about 520,000 rapes that led to 64,565 pregnancies in the time since abortion bans have been enacted in 14 states. Other research found that there were fewer than 10 abortions each month in states with bans, affirming that victims mostly were not able to get abortions in the states where they live.4
- “I’m not aware of any single instance of a survivor of rape who is pregnant being able to get an abortion in a state with an abortion ban under one of these exceptions,” said Dr. Samuel Dickman, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood, Montana, told CNN this October.5
State supervision of women is not just in the hospital or clinic.
- Texas’ SB 8 in 2022 has incentivized nosey neighbors to spy and report on them.
- The law allows private citizens to file a civil lawsuit against anyone who knowingly "aids or abets" an abortion and awards plaintiffs at least $10,000 in damages from defendants. Doctors and abortion providers, drivers who provide transportation to a clinic, or those who help fund an abortion could all be liable.6
Use of technology is going deeper into what should be considered private off-limits tracking.
- This past February U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore. stated that an anti-abortion political group used mobile phone location data to send targeted misinformation.
- Data broker company Near Intelligence, Inc. allegedly tracked people’s visits to nearly 600 Planned Parenthood locations across 48 states.7
- And there is menstrual cycle tracking. Women have been deleting their period tracking apps because of concerns that the data collected by the apps could be used against them in criminal cases where abortion becomes illegal.8
- These apps can document when periods stop and start and also when a pregnancy starts and stops. Their concerns are well founded. Five years ago the director of the Missouri state health department admitted to keeping a spreadsheet that monitored the menstrual periods of Planned Parenthood patients in order to identify patients who had had "failed medical abortions."9
These intrusions into privacy are processes a government might legitimately use to manage property shipments or migratory animals.
Controlling reproduction is something appropriate in ranching and for pets, but not persons—you would think especially not for persons who can vote in elections.
In the 18th century “coverture” was the English common law in which a married woman's legal existence was considered to be merged with that of her husband. Upon marriage, she had no independent legal existence of her own.
Laws in the 20th century helped end this doctrine. In today’s version, however, she is becoming the property of the state.
Let’s see where we go with the results of this election. We could move toward more loss of personhood or we could prove that women are independent persons who can legally make their own reproductive decisions without the breach of privacy by nosey neighbors, political groups, or a very nosey government.
Vote!
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1 https://www.texastribune.org/2023/12/08/texas-abortion-lawsuit-ken-paxton/
2 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/19/georgia-abortion-ban
3 https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/jaci-statton-oklahoma-abortion-ban-pregnancy-
b2333380.html
4 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/24/health/rape-pregnancy-abortion/index.html
5 https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/19/us/abortion-ban-states-rape-exception/index.html
6 https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1107741175/texas-abortion-bounty-law
7 https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-reveals-phone-data-used-to-target-abortion-
misinformation-at-visitors-to-hundreds-of-reproductive-health-clinics
8 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/28/why-us-woman-are-deleting-their-period-tracking-apps
9 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/missouri-health-director-tracked-menstrual-periods-planned-parenthood-patients-n1073701