For many, this year’s holiday season, beginning with Thanksgiving, has an undercurrent of dread because special meals or gatherings bring us into close contact with family and friends we love but also dramatically disagree with concerning hot button political issues.
In some households, there is no more divisive political issue than the status of reproductive freedom in a post-Roe world – especially in states like Georgia where a restrictive six-week abortion bans is currently enforced (though court-challenged) law. The same is true in most Southern states.
With the exception of North Carolina, where the ban stands at 12 weeks, Southern states either ban or highly restrict abortion access. Georgia’s ban is a “six-week” (calculated from the date of the last cycle) ban which means many women do not even realize they are pregnant before it is too late to arrange for a safe and legal procedure.
In fact, the language in Georgia’s law is so vague that even when women experience pregnancy complications in the second or third trimester, medical professionals feel they are legally compelled to delay treatment until the “life of the mother” hangs in the balance.
Polling reveals two thirds of Georgians oppose Georgia’s currently enforced abortion ban as too restrictive and this number closely corresponds to the national polling average.
One in four pregnancies results in a miscarriage and one in seven women will struggle with infertility and so those women who have not experienced problem pregnancies surely know someone who has. However, abortion is a particularly tough issue to discuss especially because past Republican and right-wing evangelical messaging has created negative, misleading, and downright untrue stereotypes.
How we talk about abortion rights and the words we choose to use are important. Shift your language choices:
- Refer to abortion as a healthcare decision and share stories in a way which humanizes the topic and acknowledges the complexities of individual situations.
- Assert women have the right to personal medical autonomy … are there laws which specifically govern men’s choices about their bodies?
- Talk about access to a “full range of reproductive medical care options” without bureaucratic or legal interference.
- Geography should not determine whether a pregnant woman is eligible for the best recommended care for an incomplete miscarriage or other pregnancy complications.
- Women are entitled to a full range of reproductive health care options which includes all forms of contraception despite some Republican calls for restrictions.
Most important, reproductive healthcare issues and medical autonomy boils down to whether women are truly FREE. Women who have served our country in combat come back to live in states like Georgia where abortion bans and restrictions deny them:
- The freedom to decide whether, when and with whom to have a child
- The freedom to create a family on a chosen timetable
- The freedom to make ALL medical decisions about contraceptive and reproductive choices in conversation with a medical provider without legislative or bureaucratic restrictions and barriers
Women should NEVER have to reach the point of being “near death” to receive abortion care when in the midst of an incomplete miscarriage or dangerous pregnancy. Medical exemptions to abortion laws should not require a court ruling which is time consuming and expensive. Doctors should not feel so threatened by poorly written laws it becomes necessary to call hospital attorneys BEFORE administering the emergency reproductive medical care their training indicates is the best standard for treating a patient they have just examined.
We must learn to weave our talking points about reproductive health care into everyday conversations in a way which highlights the downright dangerous and medically un-necessary absurdities of medically misguided and misogynistic Republican policies. Democrats are on the side of saving women’s lives and protecting freedom.
Georgia Republicans have presided over a set of healthcare policies which have denied the expansion of Medicaid and resulted in closed rural hospitals and one of the worst maternal and infant mortality rates in the nation. We must point out the hypocrisy of Republicans “claiming” to be “pro-life” when their policies prove otherwise.
It is hard to think about much less talk about the plight of a 10-year old girl who is raped and can’t get an abortion due to state laws banning abortion care. As Democrats, we must position these sad situations as a moral issue: “Republicans believe every rapist has the right to choose the mother of his child and Democrats believe every woman has the right to choose the father of hers!!”
Here are a few trusted resources for the latest information which you might find helpful:
- Letters to an American by Harvard educated historian and New York Times bestselling author Heather Cox Richardson. Her book Democracy Awakening was released in the fall of 2023. Her column places daily headlines in a historical perspective.
- Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance is a column by Alabama based former United States Attorney Joyce Vance, who is currently a law professor and a legal analyst for MSNBC and NBC. She also co-hosts the podcasts, #SistersInLaw and Café’s Insider. Updates on her chickens sometimes included!
- Abortion, Every Day is an e-mail newsletter published by Jessica Valenti, a journalist and author of five books on feminist subjects. The Washington Post has described her as “one of the most successful and visible feminists of her generation.” The newsletter covers all 50 states and provides updates on abortion bans and lawsuits as well as analysis of conservative strategies and the real life impacts of abortion bans.
- Consider subscribing to Trouble in God’s Country, a blog post written by former AJC political reporter turned public relations executive Charlie Hayslett, who is now retired. Hayslett carefully studies the deep disparities between urban and rural Georgia for healthcare or lack thereof, economic opportunity and educational advancement. He breaks large columns of statistical data down into clearly understood paragraphs and easy to understand charts.