Trigger Warning: this post discusses rape and incest
Denny Hoskins, Missouri’s Secretary of State, says that the approved amendment language, HJR 73, is not an abortion ban, but it removes approval for all abortions except in cases of miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, fetal anomalies any time in pregnancy, and for rape or incest after 12 weeks. To say it another way: if you file charges against your rapist (whether related or not) quickly enough to be able to prove the pregnancy is a result of the rape (within 12 weeks), you have access to an abortion. For some reason, I doubt that will happen very often in cases of incest. Very frequently the victims are coerced quite a bit. And when their victimizers realize they might be “caught,” it will probably be too late to address the issue in Missouri. Why do I imagine cases more like the man arrested in Texas after his stepdaughter delivered a stillborn fetus and put it in a Walmart garbage can after he took her to Mexico for an abortion? Maybe because I am over 50 years old and have seen too much by now to expect much better.
If this isn’t an abortion ban for all abortions except a small medical exception, rape and incest (the latter of which almost never actually get to happen), I don’t know what it is. Most women don’t know for sure they are pregnant yet at six weeks; ones who suspect usually are trying to get pregnant and keeping careful watch or one of those “regular as clockwork” people. I wasn’t. I suspected I was pregnant when I started throwing up - at just around six weeks.
Other states’ abortion bans have resulted in increased blood transfusions and death as doctors waited to be sure the fetus had either been expelled or was dead before evacuating the uterus, which would be considered an abortion. Pro Publica has done multiple investigations, especially a deep dive in Texas, since their passage of abortion bans since the Dobbs ruling. In Florida, when a state lawmaker went to receive emergency treatment for an ectopic pregnancy and was denied assistance because it would be a medication-induced abortion, she called the state governor and received access to care before the pregnancy damaged her fallopian tube and reduced her future fertility. It’s too bad not all of us are so privileged. Note - she still supports the state’s near total ban on abortion, stating it is the “liberals’ fault” for making doctors believe they weren’t allowed to perform abortions until there was clear risk of death to the mother. She should realize that, since many states continue to debate mandating the reimplantation of an ectopic pregnancy (can’t happen with today’s technology), it might actually be lawmakers’ lack of understanding of surgery and biology that is causing the issues with their laws, not liberals warning doctors might be uncertain by how the laws are stated, and don’t want to risk fines, jail and loss of their license to perform an abortion before absolutely provable the mother will die without it.
Missouri voters have to come to a realization - we support liberal policies: medical care between patient and provider, no one else; legal use of marijuana; medicaid for people who are struggling; food security for those who are hungry. I am not certain, especially considering what national policies are doing to farmers currently, why Missouri keeps putting Republicans in office. Oh. Wait. Gerrymandering.
Well, folks, there is only one way we can defeat that. ALL OF US who believe in many of the amendments passed in recent years that are then made unrecognizable by our legislature need to reach out to everyone else and get them to the polls this year, next year, and as long as it takes. If the incumbent is Republican, VOTE THEM OUT. Every single one of them. And if you’re someone with the energy and wisdom to move this state to where it should be, RUN. I’m serious. We need new people. We need new vision. Grab the torch! Get us there. Let’s get people in office who supported the amendments that made abortion a right again, that made marijuana legal in this state. Let’s quit letting business as usual be the standard and start making it the business of the people again.
We can do it. It takes sustained hope, it takes people working voter drives, and it takes new candidates. Please join us. Let’s change the state and the state of our world, together.
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