"I’m pro-choice, pregnant and moving to a state with an abortion ban"
28 May 2024
This essay is based on excerpts from an article written by Danielle Campoamor, a freelance writer, for the Washington Post.
I first considered moving my family from New York to rural South Dakota after my beloved grandfather — recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s — broke his hip. He required surgery and physical therapy, all while navigating the unfair, nefarious reality of dementia.
That was already a big decision for my small family — but then, before returning to South Dakota to look for houses, I found out I was pregnant.
Then I recalled another reality: South Dakota has a near-total abortion ban.
The state’s trigger law went into effect immediately after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, outlawing all abortions except to protect the life of the pregnant person. There are no exceptions for rape, incest or the prevention of serious injury, and the “exception” language itself is vague. Doctors are forced to consider what constitutes dying or being near-death “enough” before intervening. Others are advised by legal experts not to intervene at all.
Women undergo invasive and unnecessary C-sections. They wait in emergency room parking lots until their nonviable pregnancies render them sick “enough” to receive care. They miscarry alone in hospital bathrooms and carry nonviable pregnancies to term only to watch their infants — born with a portion of their skulls and brains — die.
I’ll hope I won’t experience a pregnancy complication — one that could land me in a South Dakota hospital, where physicians will weigh my life against the risk of incarceration. I’ll hope doctors do not discover a fatal fetal abnormality on a random Thursday, forcing me to travel even further so I can have what I know to be a humane, merciful abortion that will spare my future child a short life of suffering. Source
It’s hard to believe that in 2024 in the United States of America, women and girls are being tortured and forced to get suboptimal medical care due to religious and political zealots forcing their view of women and girls as baby incubators on the rest of us. This is a foreseeable result of not enough people voting for Hillary Clinton for President in 2016. As a result, Donald Trump became President and he predictably appointed three anti-choice Supreme Court justices who overturned 50 years of abortion policy.
As United States citizens, we have the privilege of choosing our government but also the responsibility to make sure we are making the right choice:
There is no leader who will make the decision you want her or him to make 100 percent of the time. Your vote is a tool of hope for a better world. Use it wisely, for it is precious. Use it for others, for they are in need of your support, too. George H. Takei.
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