Republican states are dangerous for women and girls
29 May 2024
There are currently 23 states with Republican Party trifectas (red in the map above), which means they have Republican governors and majorities in their state house and senate (or a Republican unicameral legislature in Nebraska).
These states have either banned abortions (see map below), or are working to ban or limit abortion rights and otherwise restrict the available healthcare for women and girls. In these states, women and girls should expect to give up substantial control of their lives to the State if they become pregnant, because the State may be more interested in protecting their embryo or fetus than their own lives, even if the embryo or fetus is dead.
These abortion bans are designed to prohibit all abortions. In addition, they will delay or prohibit proper medical care for pregnant women and girls with pregnancy complications, miscarriages, current or pending fetal deaths, increasing the risk of maternal death, infertility or other medical issues.
As a practical matter, abortion exceptions are often meaningless because physicians and hospitals in anti-abortion states do not want to perform abortions under any circumstances to avoid being charged with a felony if the local prosecutor disagrees with their interpretation of whether the exceptions apply.
These Republican states are also trying to limit medication abortions and contraceptive use (particularly hormonal based and IUDs). They are also threatening to criminalize traveling through the state to get an abortion anywhere or giving any assistance to someone about getting an abortion (advice or money).
These Republican states are turning their public schools into propaganda centers against abortion and funding anti-abortion/pregnancy centers that dissuade women and girls from abortions, often through lies.
These Republican states want to track pregnant women to dissuade them from getting pregnant.
Some of these Republican states want to make abortions a public record to threaten the women, girls or their physicians with possible prosecution or civil lawsuits or to shame them, see also here.
These Republican states are dangerous to women and girls NOT pregnant because physicians may be unable to prescribe medications and offer treatments for autoimmune diseases, cancer and other conditions that may adversely affect the embryos of women or girls who might become pregnant.
These Republican states are a hazard to pregnant women or girls traveling there because they will be unable to get adequate treatment in a medical emergency. For that reason, our business tends to avoid conferences in these states, and many organizations have issued travel advisories for these states.
These Republican states may be developing shortages of OB-GYNS and other medical personnel, as medical trainees and staff avoid them knowing that they cannot get adequate training and cannot practice according to the standard of care due to the abortion bans.
Every day, elected officials in these Republican states are working to transform their states and the country by passing the above legislation, based on their vision of women and girls as mere baby incubators.
The choice of where to live is complicated, but women, girls and their families should recognize the danger to their health from living in these Republican states. Those who stay should plan how they will deal with possible pregnancies or other issues described above.
I subscribe to these informative blogs about reproductive health:
Jessica Valenti, Abortion Every Day
See my prior related essays:
Florida's abortion ban - bad for women and bad for business, 4 April 2024
Texas physicians, women and girls: it's time to consider moving, 13 December 2023
Why physicians should consider leaving anti-abortion rights states, 16 August 2023
Move to Michigan, where our government protects your rights, 10 July 2023
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Excellent
Thanks Dick. This is a scary essay to write - who would have thought that a political party would deliberately endanger the health of women and girls? For many Republicans, once a woman or girl gets pregnant, maintaining the pregnancy, or the illusion of the pregnancy if the fetus/embryo is dead, is more important than the life and health of the pregnant women/girl.