June 24 marked the second anniversary of the Dobbs decision that eliminated a constitutional right held by women in America for nearly 50 years, and left women as second-class citizens.
Never before in our 247-year history has the U.S. Supreme Court torn asunder a fundamental right of citizens, one that confers control of our own body autonomy. But here we are, and we should examine the results of two years of this most egregious of judicial activism and how it is reshaping reproductive healthcare nationwide.
Since Dobbs, 14 states now have statutes in place that criminalize virtually all abortions, depriving 18 million women and girls of reproductive age of access to abortion. That amounts to 27.4% of all U.S. females. Another four states ban abortion from between six and 18 weeks, and another eight ban abortion after 22 weeks.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that women, especially poor women and women of color, directly targeted by these bans, have suffered the most serious and ongoing health consequences of such abortion bans. The heartbreaking stories from Texas, Idaho, Tennessee and elsewhere documenting the medical disasters affecting scores of women in those states proliferate on a daily basis. The Texas Supreme Court recently declined to clarify exactly what Texas’ supposed exception to its abortion ban was. Instead, they blamed women’s physicians for “misinterpreting the ban.” Nonsense. Texas women’s physicians are caught in a hellscape of uncertainty trying to figure out exactly how near to death a woman need be before they can intervene to save her life. Is it one week? 72 hours? One hour? How much blood must she hemorrhage? How septic should she be? Indeed, the calculated cruelty of the bans is, in fact, their purpose.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the states with the highest maternal mortality rates also are those with abortion bans or severe restrictions. Of the states with the 10 worst maternal mortality rates, eight have total or near-total bans. Now a report published in JAMA from Texas found that infant and neonatal mortality has increased as well: a 12.9% increase overall in infant deaths and a 23% increase in deaths because of congenital anomalies. This is what happens when women are forced to carry nonviable pregnancies to term. So much for so-called “pro-life.”
Michiganders are fortunate that they enshrined reproductive rights, including abortion, in our Constitution by overwhelmingly approving Proposal 3. But that hasn’t stopped the assault on reproductive rights by Republicans; witness the bogus lawsuit brought by Michigan Right To Life and Republican lawmakers last November to overturn Prop 3.
Don’t expect them to stop at abortion either: As we saw in Alabama, in vitro fertilization and contraception are on their list, and the convicted ex-president continues to crow about “his judges” that produced Dobbs. We can stop this insanity by voting for Democrats. It’s the only way to protect our reproductive freedoms. It’s as simple as that.