With Roe v Wade up in the air again, California has announced that they plan on being a state of sanctuary for women and their reproductive rights and women’s healthcare if it is overturned. More than two dozen states are considering banning abortion as a whole if the United States Supreme Court gives them permission. I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m posting about abortions in a gender and sexuality-based violence forum. This is a pure form of violence against women. Not only is it violent to take away a woman’s reproductive choice and rights, but there is a direct link between domestic violence, sexual violence, and having restrictive abortion laws. Men being able to control a woman’s form of birth control is sickening. Who are a bunch of old, white men to tell women what is deemed an emergency situation fit for an abortion? Banning abortion will not stop women from having abortions. It will cease safe abortion. Women’s lives are on the line, and I can’t for the life of me understand why this continues to be a conversation when physicians have said life does not begin at conception. Plus, what a woman chooses to do with her body literally has nothing to do with the millions of strangers that for some reason are against abortion. There’s a woman out there right now having an abortion as I type this, and I couldn’t care less, because that has nothing to do with me. If Roe V Wade is overturned, we will see women do drastic and dangerous things to terminate pregnancies. So my question is, are lawmakers really willing to see the death of thousands of women over the “death” of fetuses…?
California deciding to be a safe haven is a beautiful thing, but it poses a threat to the people that work there, and the women that are going to these clinics are going to be at a disadvantage because there will be targeted violence against them. The overall outcome of banning abortion is not a good one, but we will see where things go in the upcoming months. I feel like this conversation comes up in the courts at least twice a year and they never actually ban it. This seems like a way for men to flaunt the power they have over women…