Roe v Wade In Texas Reflects Current State of Women’s Healthcare

By Ava Cohen

avaocohen@gmail.com

 

The Supreme Court recently rejected a request to block a law in Texas that bans physicians from providing abortions “if the physician detects a fetal heartbeat,” including embryonic cardiac activity, which can be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy,” despite much protest from many Americans. 

Six weeks into a pregnancy also happens to be only about two weeks late for most people’s periods, which doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for someone to realize they’re pregnant. In fact, only 10-15% of people seeking abortions fit into the margin of being less than six weeks pregnant. Of course, this ban isn’t going to stop people from getting abortions. What it will do is prevent people from access to safe abortions, consequentially putting pregnant people at risk for more dangerous methods of abortion. 

For example, countries where abortion is illegal, such as Argentina, 40-some women die from methods of unsafe abortions yearly. In all parts of the world where abortion is illegal, botched abortions cause about 30,000 deaths yearly. However, there are exceptions to this rule:. The people who will continue to have access to safe abortions are the ones who can afford to drop huge sums of money on them. 

The working class is continuously exploited and treated as disposable in America, and this situation is no different. The lawmakers deciding if people should be allowed to receive safe abortions could not care less if people perform unsafe abortions with hangers or throw themselves down the stairs. And in Texas, poverty rates are doubly high for Hispanic and Black residents compared to White residents, meaning that this law could disproportionately affect Black and Brown folks seeking abortions. 

The agenda of pro-life legislators has been to slowly chip away at abortion rights for years, and Mississippi just recently requested that the Supreme Court overturn Roe in their state. It seems that in the post-Trump era, Democrats and Republicans alike realize they can get away with much more, especially since so many Democrats and liberals stopped caring after Biden got elected. Who’s to say that there won’t be more elusive laws to try and forbid people from getting abortions across the whole country in a few years?

According to Planned Parenthood, women are fifty percent more likely to die during childbirth than thirty years ago, with Black women being three to four times more likely. TRAP laws, or targeted restrictions on abortion providers, have been a consistent hurdle while ninety percent of counties in the country lack an abortion care provider. Women’s health care is consistently brushed aside for the comfortability of old white men who think their word should be unquestionable. 

If they really care about the lives of children so much, why don’t they do something for the more than 400,000 kids in foster care across the country? Or help the children in cages on the border? This is not a matter of religious beliefs and morality, but of legislators wanting to hold onto their power and make everyone and anyone feel small so they may uphold their cycles of exploitation and abuse without having to worry about revolt.