So you are writing a legal opinion and you need to make sure people know how serious abortion is, eh? What to do, what to do. Judge Yeakel of the U.S. District Court of Western Texas was faced with this question after he struck down the admitting privileges portion of the TRAP law HB2. So, his solution: SLAVERY. That’s right, slavery.
In the ruling Judge Yeakel (a Bush appointee) states:
Today there is no issue that divides the people of this country more than abortion. It is the?most divisive issue to face this country since slavery. When compared with the intensity, emotion,?and depth of feeling expressed with regard to abortion, the recent arguments on affordable?healthcare, increasing the debt ceiling, and closing the government retreat to near oblivion. Sincere?and caring persons of good will are found on both sides of the issue, but neither side will ever change?the position of the other.
Wait, did you just hear the giant record scratch? According to them, no issue is more divisive than abortion, just none except SLAVERY. That’s right, abortion is as bad as slavery. That is the idea the Judge wants to plant. It isn’t accidental it’s very deliberate and part of a propaganda campaign that anti choice forces have been using to co opt the racial history of this country to strip women of their rights. That’s because for them fertilized eggs are equal to living breathing women and thus abortion is equal to slavery. Yes THE slavery the one where black women breastfed little white babies kind, got whipped, and people owned people kind.
They like to leave out or ignore that during slavery enslaved women did not have the right to their own bodies. Enslaved women were denied the right to marry, the right to
procreate with who they wanted, the right to raise their own children,?and were forced to bear pregnancy after pregnancy at the slave masters’ whims not their own desires.
They like linking the fight over abortion with?slavery and civil rights,?because those are highly emotional and very black and white issues for people. They would like abortion to be the same for people, for people to forget about the?1 in 3 women?who will have abortions, their stories, their lives, and that they are living, breathing people that matter.
Anti-choice groups have taken ultrasound photos, placed them on t-shirts, and made signs with “I am a person” written on them to promote?personhood?bills. Reminiscent of the?“I am a man”?posters used by the sanitation workers prior to the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.?They have used the term “abolitionist” to describe themselves and what they are doing. They say they are working to ?abolish human abortion.”
They can do all of that and then some, but the fact remains that ?abortion is not like slavery at all. A medical procedure within the scope of reproductive health services that gives women, including black women whose ancestors not only survived slavery but forced sterilization (which still occurs), control of their own reproductive lives is freedom, NOT slavery. To equate abortion with slavery is very disgusting exploitative rhetoric that is routine for the anti choice fringe. It’s wholly inappropriate for a Federal Judge.
Edited/Published by: SB
Correction- An earlier version of this article stated that the quote came from the Texas Attorney General. The court document quote actually comes from the written decision of Judge Yeakel in his ruling regarding House Bill 2. While the person it came from is different and the intent may be different the comparison is just as egregious.
