Vote out people who care more about a fetus than the woman carrying it

The draft opinion by the Supreme Court of the United States overturning Roe v Wade that was leaked this week has left many of us feeling angry and deceived. It confirmed what we suspected all along: the declarations of previous Supreme Court nominees affirming Roe as established law were lies at worst and misdirection at best. We should be angry.

If the court follows through with the draft and issues its decision overturning Roe v Wade, leaving abortion regulation up to the states, there is nothing anyone can do about it except vote out the conservatives that make the state laws limiting a woman’s bodily autonomy.

We must get rid of national and state politicians who want to legislate their religious beliefs into a woman’s uterus, who believe they have some say in whether or not we have children, who believe that my teenage daughter, and all of our daughters, should be physically forced to bear a child, arguably the most dramatic change a woman’s body will ever know, because they think the government should insert itself as a stakeholder in the health care decisions made between a woman, or a girl, her family, and her doctor.

These are the same conservatives who fervently believe the government should not tell people to wear masks during a worldwide pandemic, yet they think the government should dictate women’s health care?

The conservative party used to be one of smaller government, the party of more freedom and fewer laws, but now it wants to take away, and in many states including Kentucky already has, a woman’s ultimate freedom to control her own body free from invasion from the government.

This pro-birth party thinks pregnant women and girls are non-citizens except for their ability to birth a baby. These same conservatives don’t want universal health care or child care that would allow poor women to work. They are against a living minimum wage that would permit single mothers to work and raise a family free from poverty. These are the same people that want to do away with birth control and sex education in schools, both of which reduce unintended pregnancies.

Conservative legislators who preach at poor people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to find financial footing, don’t really want the middle class to rise, or at least not women. If they did, they’d be all for health care and a fair minimum wage.

Let’s not forget the daughters, granddaughters, sisters, mothers, and wives of these same lawmakers have the means to travel out of state to obtain an abortion unlike the vast majority of poor women in the state of Kentucky. These laws aren’t just hypocritical and misogynistic, they’re also classist.

This “family values” party would force an 11-year old girl raped by her father or an uncle or a family friend to carry that child for nine months and give birth to a rapist’s baby, without any concern for the health, mental well-being, or choice of that young girl. Picture your 11-year old daughter or granddaughter in this situation. How can anyone be OK with that?

The only thing we can do now is vote these people out of office and elect legislators who don’t feel the need to control the reproductive lives of women. We vote out the people who care more about a fetus that can’t live outside a woman’s body than they do about the woman they are forcing to give birth.

A woman has a right to make decisions regarding her body and her health free from government intrusion. If you have a legislator who trusts women, thank him or her. If not, we must elect legislators who understand this fundamental right.

Shelley Roberts Bendall is a writer from Lexington.

This story was originally published May 4, 2022 at 12:34 PM.