With the Trump-infused far-right Supreme Court voting to abandon Roe v. Wade, Republican zealots appear intent on systematically continuing to outlaw abortion all together.
As of March 23, eighteen states — including Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Missouri, Tennessee, Louisiana, Idaho, Mississippi, South Dakota, Oklahoma and West Virginia — have legislated a full ban on all abortions regardless of the length of a pregnancy. A six week ban by Georgia and Florida is prior to when most women become aware they’re expecting.
Federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an anti-abortion extremist, recently outlawed the morning-after abortion pill, levonorgestrel. Fabricating his ruling on a lack of adequate FDA testing, his obvious motive was to prevent abortion from the moment of initial fertilization; a bogus ideology of anything linked to harming an actual human being.
From zygote to blastocyst, the initial embryo at four weeks is only about .04 inches long, the size of a sesame seed; not exactly human-like by any stretch of the imagination. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has determined the subsequent fetus has no capacity to feel pain until at least 24 weeks. Some studies claim closer to 20.
Abortion at a reasonable stage of pregnancy in no way constitutes the murder of a human being. Perhaps, preventing the future growth of one, but that’s about it. There’s no need to feel guilty about aborting prior to when a human body actually starts to materialize.
What if mostly male lawmakers, legislating anti-abortion laws, were the ones who got pregnant? What if they were forced to go through a nine-month pregnancy including the myriad complications associated with an unwanted child? I suspect their zeal to push anti-abortion decrees would soon dissolve into oblivion.
Decided early enough, simply having no desire to be pregnant should be no one’s business but that of the women.
Raymond A. Hult, Bountiful
