Do we need medical catastrophes to achieve bodily autonomy?

Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Jessica Valenti, author of Abortion Every Day. One of the things we discussed, which she frequently covers in her newsletter, is the dire medical complications women experience due to abortion restrictions. These stories are heartbreaking and completely avoidable, but women’s lives are now at the mercy of far-right extremist legislators who believe embryos should be preserved — even when the pregnancy is non-viable and the woman’s life is in danger. You just need to read one of Jessica’s hundreds (maybe thousands) of daily reports to see the proof.

Each time I read these, I am horrified. But I am also really, really annoyed. Why do we need to use these stories to change people’s minds about an individual’s personal choice to terminate a pregnancy? Stories are quick to point out that an abortion was the last thing the woman wanted, that she desperately wanted to be pregnant, but that the fetus would not survive for one reason or another. Apparently we needed to see an emotionally devastated woman, or someone on the brink of death, to even begin to reconsider our laws about abortion.

And this isn’t even really working. In spite of the fact that most Americans support abortion access, legislators are covering their ears and carrying on doing the bidding of a handful of people who want to strip away every right women have scraped together over the last 100 years.

This is not an exaggeration. Just this week, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed a bill that would have protected access to contraception. The Hill reported:

Companion bills in the State House and Senate chambers state that “a person shall have the right to obtain contraceptives and to engage in contraception” and that the right “shall not be infringed upon by any law, regulation, or policy that expressly or effectively limits, delays, or impedes access to contraceptives or information related to contraception.”

Youngkin explained his decision using the same old excuses. But the most chilling, to me, is that the Left’s rebuke is a reminder that birth control is health care. Emily Amick (another great resource for political and abortion news) shared the many other things birth control is used for:

And I get it. Emily in particular knows a hell of a lot more about political messaging than I do, and she knows what will move people to action. But what about this reason: birth control helps women not get pregnant because some women don’t want to have babies. Why is that reason not good enough?

When I wrote my doctoral thesis, beginning in 2018, I focused on how our culture still fails to see women as entire human beings, separate from motherhood. I reject the argument that anti-choicers think embryos are babies. I’m sure there are well-meaning anti-abortion voters who believe the lies they are told by Trump and his minions, that doctors and mothers are killing newly-born babies (those people should really try harder to know better, though). But at the top, I believe the lobbyists and legislators simply don’t want women to have power. So we are drip-fed this line about how women are meant to mothers, and their lives are meaningless until they have kids. We saw proof of that just last week with whats-his-name-football-player’s commencement address. And this belief is put into action by forcing women to continue pregnancies they don’t want.

But if life is really what is most important to anti-choicers, why doesn’t the mother’s life matter if the baby will not survive? Why is there insufficient government and medical support for mothers and children? Why are there “some 381,000 households with children, [where] kids also experienced the pangs of hunger – skipping meals or going the whole day without eating” — and why do the same legislators who restrict abortion to “preserve life” also reject funding to feed families? Why is there no action on gun restrictions (and even promises from Trump to remove all of the protections Biden put in place), when we see children die from guns all. the. time? Why do they not care about babies who are here, born, and need help?

When women’s lives are consumed by motherhood, instead of anything else, men retain all the power. Why else would douchebags like Tucker Carlson and his friends be so enraged by Chelsea Handler’s comedic video, “day in the life of a childless woman?”

This may sound, to some, like the ramblings of a hysterical feminist, but I would argue that you need only look at the evidence. If we live in a modern, equal society, why can’t our rights be secured as a simple matter of choice? When will we be able to simply say: I want birth control or an abortion because I don’t want to have a kid or another kid, right now or maybe ever.

When can we stop giving strangers reasons for the choices we make that shape our own lives?