Glenn Melancon/Contributing writer
When a woman walks into a doctor’s office should Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton walk in too? Should national Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy and Ted Cruz watch a woman’s exam? Should these politicians make medical decisions for women?
Republican politicians in Austin and Washington think they should.
Pregnancy is one of the most dangerous and complicated experience in a woman’s life. Since the Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973, women have been free to make medical decisions for themselves. State and federal politicians had to allow a woman to make decisions that impacted her health and life.
On June 24, 2022, the conservative Supreme Court took those freedoms away. The conservative court gave power to state politicians. State politicians can now place the life of a developing fetus before the life and health of a breathing woman.
The Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision allows politicians to create a one size fits all regulation for all pregnancies in the state. Before Dobbs, Abbott and Patrick placed bounties on women whose pregnancies ended before birth, encouraging vigilantes to spy on their neighbors. They also drafted a radical “trigger” law just in case the conservatives on the Supreme Court gave politicians more power over women.
Doctors across the nation and the state are warning the public about the consequences of this new found power.
For example in Ohio, a ten year old rape victim had to leave the state for an abortion because, like Texas, Ohio Republicans denied abortions to all rape victims.
In Louisiana, a woman had to leave that state because she carried a fetus without a head. It clearly could not have lived outside her body.
Since the politicians decided a heartbeat defined a life, the woman could not get an abortion. The state required her to deliver a dead child.
All across the country, women face these horrible realities because politicians want to legislate away medical complexities.
Doctors now must deny women cancer treatments because chemo could cause an abortion. Under these new laws, chemo treatments could be prosecuted as murder.
All my life conservatives told me they wanted small government. Abbott, Patrick, Paxton, McConnell, McCarthy and Cruz now stand between a woman and her doctor. Is that small government?
Now, Lindsay Graham and the Republicans in Congress want the federal government to have these same powers.
They want the federal government to restrict women’s medical choices. They want federal prosecutors to hunt women who defend their health and life during pregnancy.
If these conservatives impose themselves on women, there would be no escape. Pregnancy is one of the most dangerous and complicated experience in a woman’s life.
I trust women, not politicians. Who do you trust?