Opinion/Your Turn: No Fourth of July without freedom for women
This past year, I have feared for every person who can get pregnant in America after abortion rights protected under Roe v. Wade were struck down by the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision on June 24, 2022. The Supreme Court has declared that your organs do not belong to you but to the state.
Abortion is a health care matter concerning pregnancies that end early, whether induced or spontaneous. Miscarriages, which happen to one in four pregnancies, fall under this definition, as do ectopic pregnancies, when the fertilized egg grows unsuccessfully outside the uterus — both circumstances being completely out of one’s control.
Abortion is a professional health care service that drastically improves survival and quality of life for those who need it. As part of family planning, abortion also improves the quality of life for those who benefit from delaying or avoiding children, such as men.
The deceitful “pro-life” stance on abortion has been unmasked after the Supreme Court created a nation where the gun, and its right to kill, enjoys more freedoms than the woman and her right to live. A “pro-domination” stance has shamelessly revealed itself instead.
It is unacceptable for people who will never need an abortion to control its access. Policies that rob women, intersex, trans and gender-non-conforming people of their reproductive independence are human rights violations. People must be given the decision-making power over their own bodies because the rights of the living are indeed greater than the rights of the yet-to-live.
“Pro-domination” believers peddle the unfounded myth that women will commit mass feticide (murder of fetus) if they were to ever gain complete control over their own bodies. When, in global history, have women ever committed mass murder, especially against children? When, in the past year in the US alone, have men committed mass murder, especially against children?
Under the pretense of protecting lives, declaring that the Constitution will not confer a right to abortion has effectively legalized massacre in the US. There is a tragic number who have died and will die unnecessarily because of unwanted and unsafe pregnancies. This devastation comes on top of the most common cause of death for pregnant women: murder by the men they know. We can never end gender-based oppression without guaranteeing health and safety during and after pregnancies, even when the gestation ends early.
Terminated pregnancies will not stop, only the safe ones will. They will not stop because too much remains beyond women’s control. Her pregnancy could end because her body said so, because her partner forced her to, because she sought to after she was raped by a stranger or her father, because she needed to after the doctors said she would die, or because she knew that she was not ready yet to care for a delicate baby in such a hateful world that has put so many barriers against her.
There is no Fourth of July without freedom for women. And there is no freedom for women without freedom from the biological and social dangers of pregnancies.
The United States may not be the land of the free, but this is still the home of the brave, and we must look to gender diverse leadership now more than ever to guide us in the turbulent years ahead.
Murylo Batista, of Mashpee, is a graduate of Sturgis Charter Public School and Dartmouth College, and a public health researcher on violence prevention.
The Cape Cod Times app puts the pulse of the Cape and Islands in the palm of your hand. Download our free app.
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Opinion: There's no Fourth of July for women after Dobbs decision
