It's simple, really. Laws like the Texas one Cienna wrote about yesterdayâones that are all, Hey, just trying to educate these fool women about babies, here!âare stupid because most women who have abortions already have one or more children.
Sure, the law being put forth in Texas is to force women to take an adoption class, not get a mandatory ultrasound, but it's still all about treating women seeking abortions as if they have no idea what their options are (and/or what babies are, in the case of mandatory ultrasounds or pamphlets about babies or whatever bullshit). As if public schools and women's clinics and after-school specials hadn't really covered the fact that adoption exists and that it is an option for unintended pregnancies. Thanks, Texas.
I'd just like to say it a million more times: Most women who have abortionsâaround 60 percentâalready have at least one kid; they know exactly what is going on in there. The reasons women have abortions are generally financial and/or a concern for their family, work, or education responsibilities. Some of them are like Carolyn Jones of Texas, women who are all straight-married and picket-fenced and looking to mom, and then discover dramatic medical abnormalities partway through a pregnancy.
Seriously, read Jones's story, which she wrote just after Texas's mandatory sonogram law passed:
âIâm so sorry that I have to do this,â the doctor told us, âbut if I donât, I can lose my license.â Before he could even start to describe our baby, I began to sob until I could barely breathe. Somewhere, a nurse cranked up the volume on a radio, allowing the inane pronouncements of a DJ to dull the doctorâs voice. Still, despite the noise, I heard him. His unwelcome words echoed off sterile walls while I, trapped on a bed, my feet in stirrups, twisted away from his voice.
âHere I see a well-developed diaphragm and here I see four healthy chambers of the heartâŚâ
Jones and other Texas women have to go through this patronizing, traumatizing bullshit because of the made-up mythical abortion-seeker that anti-choicers have invented in their headâa sad-eyed teenager who just needs another pamphlet about heartbeats to decide to "choose life." But most womenâ58 percentâwho have abortions are in their 20s. Seventy-three percent are religiously affiliated. (Stats here.) You don't need to lecture anybody; you can be damn sure they've heard it already. If y'all wanted to bring abortion rates down, you'd do something about poverty. Everyone can tell that you just want to punish abortion patients, not educate women. So fuck you.
