Reproductive justice suffered a loss in Ohio but gained a win in Mississippi this week.?Roe v Wade may have turned 40 last year, but the fight for reproductive health did not end with that landmark decision. The Right worked hard this week to circumvent the Constitutional law that guarantees women the right to privacy in making a decision regarding pregnancy in order to end abortion access in Mississippi and Ohio.
WIN
According to ABC News, ?a federal appeals court said Thursday that it won’t reconsider its earlier ruling that a 2012 Mississippi abortion law is unconstitutional.? That law, which was ruled unconstitutional on July 29 of this year, required physicians performing abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals. The law would force the closure of Mississippi’s only abortion clinic.
Phil Bryant, Republican governor of Mississippi, who signed the law, insists that it is meant to protect the health and safety of women who have complications during the abortion procedure. However, Bryant has also said repeatedly that ending abortion rights is a key goal for him during his tenure. Realitycheck.org states that the law is ?similar to measures pushed by anti-choice legislators and passed in?Texas,?Wisconsin,?and Alabama.?
LOSE
In Ohio, the ?fetal heartbeat law? was moved out of committee and sent to the state’s House of Representatives for a vote on Thursday. According to realitycheck.org, the bill ?would ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected? and doctors performing abortions on women as early as six weeks into a pregnancy could face criminal charges.? This particular law had gained temporary popularity in North Dakota before a federal judge struck it down as ?invalid and unconstitutional.?
Ohio governor John Kasich raised concerns about the bill, stating that while he is pro-life, he believes in ?exceptions in the case of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is in jeopardy?Ohio’s version of the Heartbeat Bill would only make exceptions for health of the mother? (Cleveland.com).
For now, the law hangs in the balance while considered by the Ohio House of Representatives. Its passing would effectively outlaw abortion completely in Ohio, since most women do not realize that they’re pregnant until well after six weeks have passed.
Why
These laws are driven by the belief expressed by Concerned Women for America that ?every single time an abortion is performed, the goal is to kill a human being.? The ?admitting privileges law? goes further, insisting along with the CWA that abortion ?sometimes?kills a baby and a woman.?
This ignores the fact that, in 2009, only 8 women died as a result of abortion complications, while in 1972 (the year before Roe v Wade made abortion legal in this country), 63 women died due to complications from abortions (abort73.com). In other words, abortion happens whether legal or illegal in our country, but they only happen safely when abortion is legal and access to abortion is unrestricted.
While the Mississippi law is a misguided attempt at concern for women’s health (which is more a thinly veiled attempt to end abortion), the Ohio law works even more odiously to eliminate?access to safe and legal abortions swiftly and completely.
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