Mandating Motherhood

Whether you're 10... or 16... or carrying a fetus with no skull... the GOP wants to force you to give birth

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When Republicans say no exceptions, they mean no exceptions.

Three days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Ohio’s draconian abortion ban meant that a 10-year-old rape victim was denied an abortion because her pregnancy was not reported until 3 days after the state’s new 6-week limit. (That case was resolved when the child in that particular case was taken out of state for an abortion.)

This week, I was struck by two more stories that highlighted the extreme harm that religious fanaticism combined with medieval legal thinking is doing to 21st-Century American girls and women.

Catch-22 meets The Handmaid’s Tale

On Monday August 15, a Florida appeals court ruled that a 16-year-old girl had failed to establish “that she was sufficiently mature to decide whether to terminate her pregnancy.”

The 16-year-old is parentless and living with an appointed guardian.

In addition to being mature enough to get pregnant, she is also mature enough to be pursuing a GED—and was mature enough to petition the court by hand, insisting:

She “is not ready to have a baby,” she doesn’t have a job, she is “still in school” and the father is unable to assist her.

In an interview with the judge:

The minor was knowledgeable about the relevant considerations in terminating her pregnancy along with the other statutory factors. She had done Google searches and reviewed a pamphlet… To gain an understanding about her medical options and their consequences.

Despite all that, the judge decided that the girl, who was 10 weeks pregnant, wasn’t sufficiently mature to make the decision to terminate her pregnancy.

So because she’s too immature for a quick, safe and legal first-trimester abortion, this parentless child must endure 30 more weeks of pregnancy as she studies for her GED; then give birth to a child that she fully understands she is unprepared to raise and has no way of supporting; then possibly deal with the emotional reaction the improverished father has to the birth of the baby; and then finalize whatever decision she makes about attempting to raise the child herself or give it up for adoption.

As I tweeted at the time, it was like Catch-22 meets The Handmaid’s Tale: “We must force you to give birth, child, because you are simply not mature enough to have an abortion.”

“The top of the baby’s head was missing and the skull was missing…”

The second case I read about was heartbreaking—and stupefying—in a different way.

As Chris Rosato of WAFB-9 reported, Baton Rouge mother Nancy Davis was excited to be pregnant with her second child. But at 10 weeks, an ultrasound destroyed her hopes for a healthy pregnancy:

“It was an abnormal ultrasound, and they noticed the top of the baby’s head was missing and the skull was missing, the top of the skull was missing,” Davis explained.

Davis says her baby was diagnosed with acrania. A rare and fatal condition, where the baby’s skull fails to form in the womb. According to health experts, babies with this condition only survive minutes to hours after birth. But because Davis’s life was not in danger and the baby’s condition does not fall under Louisiana Department of Health’s list of qualifying conditions, she was denied an abortion. Unsure about what to do, Davis is faced with a tough decision. Either carry the baby to term, or cross state lines to get an abortion.

It’s true that an “out-of-state” option currently exists for women in states that may ban abortion—but only for women (or children) with the means, flexibility and friends-and-family support to pursue it. And that option will only exist until Republicans gain enough power to enact the nationwide abortion ban they claim to seek.

“My body, my choice,” but only for masks

Republicans have spent much of the pandemic fighting mask mandates and screaming that kids shouldn’t be forced to wear masks.

Now they are telling you that kids who couldn’t handle masks should be forced to give birth.

Republicans have spent much of 2022 claiming hysterically that Drag Queen Story Hours will scar young children for life.

Now they are telling you that if a rape victim as young as 10 gets pregnant, she should see it as an “opportunity.”

Republicans say they want babies to be conceived in marriage between a man and a woman—and that women should be “earthen vessels” for producing babies.

Now they are putting families who are trying to have kids through months of hell (and an indefinite periods of mourning) simply to force women to carry fetuses that have zero chance of survival.

Republicans claim to love freedom and hate mandates.

But they have dedicated themselves to robbing women of their personal freedom—and are insisting on mandating motherhood even in situations where forcing a child or woman to give birth will be excessively cruel, emotionally traumatic, medically dangerous, and potentially deadly.

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