The Disastrous Consequences of the Republican Party's Attempts to Control a Woman's Body
The Early Struggle for Equitable Healthcare
In the 1970’s, when women’s rights groups such as CESA (Committee to End Sterilization Abuse) and CARASA (Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse) were actively working in New York to both end forcible sterilization of women- then called a Mississippi Appendectomy- and get laws passed allowing a woman to have an abortion at any time for any reason, the most strident reaction against such rights came from the Catholic Church.
In her book, A Woman’s Life is a Human Life: My Mother, Our Neighbor, and the Journey from Reproductive Rights to Reproductive Justice, Felicia Kornbluh details how the movement for abortion rights got started with various groups in New York. Some groups wanted to exclude lesbians, or did not want to advocate for the rights of Puerto Rican citizens, who were subject to medical discrimination at the time.
The discrimination took the form of an old, underfunded hospital that was largely inefficient to serve the needs of its community. Lincoln Hospital, in 1970, came under occupation by an activist group called the Young Lords. The Young Lords was a Chicago-based group who advocated for the rights of Puerto Rican, Latino, and other colonized people in America.
The Lords, at that time, described themselves as revolutionary socialists. In a New York Times article from July 15, 1970, Lords member Gloria Cruz was quoted as saying:
“Lincoln Hospital is only [a] butcher shop that kills patients and frustrates workers from serving these patients. This is because Lincoln exists under a capitalist system that only looks for profit. But even this system made an effort at scrapping this butcher shop by condemning this building 25 years ago.”
Five days after Lincoln Hospital’s 12-hour occupation by the Young Lords, Carmen Rodriguez sought an abortion at the facility and died. The doctors did not consult her medical history and gave Rodriguez drugs that were not recommended for individuals with a heart condition.
These events led to a new hospital opening in 1976, six years later. At the center of activism efforts advocating for better health care for women and Puerto Rican people was Dr. Helen Rodriguez-Trias, who was a founding member of both CESA (in 1970) and CARASA (in 1979).
As someone who went to university in Puerto Rico, but practiced in New York, Rodriguez-Trias saw first-hand the disastrous consequences of the official policy of her time. Women, who first gained the right to open a bank account in 1974 under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, had been largely seen as second-class citizens. Latino people, while nominally afforded all the opportunities every other person had, were, in practice, subject to unequal treatment their white peers did not experience.
The Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade came down on January 22, 1973. This decision granted women the right to an abortion during the first two trimesters of pregnancy. For some abortion rights activists, this was seen as a compromise. For others, it was a victory- for a moment.
Three years later, on September 30, 1976, the Hyde Amendment was passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. It was named after its primary sponsor, Republican Henry Hyde of Illinois. The Hyde Amendment prevented the usage of federal funds to pay for abortion with three exceptions: it would be allowed to save the life of the mother, or allowed in cases of incest and/or rape.
A prohibition on federal funding meant both Medicare and Medicaid services could not be used when a woman sought an abortion. With the Hyde Amendment in effect, federally-funded abortions dropped from 300,000 a year to several thousand. Low-income women who might have otherwise sought an abortion were, under the new law, unable to do so.
Control of Women
49 years after Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court heard another case: Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organziation.
Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi, sued Thomas Dobbs, an official in the Mississippi State Department of Health. At issue was a Mississippi law which prevented abortion after the first fifteen weeks of pregnancy. This was contrary to established case law, such as that expressed in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, in 1992, which held an abortion could be performed up to the 24th week of pregnancy.
The law was inspired by a right-wing Christian legal organization called the Alliance Defending Freedom, who had deliberately set up a legal showdown beginning in January 2018 that they hoped would see the court overturn Roe v. Wade. After getting a 15-week ban in place, they intended to have a full ban in place, with an exception to save the life of the mother.
The Alliance Defending Freedom never needed to go so far as to inspire a full ban, because they got what they wanted: decades of legal precedent was overturned in a single decision. For Jackson Women’s Health Organization, their choice had been to let increasingly restrictive laws remain or bring forth the legal challenge provoked by such laws.
Mississippi’s only abortion clinic closed for good on July 6, 2022 following the Dobbs decision. Residents of the state had nowhere to go within the state if they wanted an abortion.
However, abortion-seekers have been finding their own ways around bans and restrictions. Abortifacient medications such as mifepristone and misoprostol can be sent through the mail. Doctors can use telehealth appointments from across the country to prescribe the medicine.
Mifepristone causes the human body to cease producing progesterone, a hormone necessary for fetal growth. Misoprostol causes heavy bleeding and severe cramps that would be similar to a difficult menstrual cycle. Even with a difficult experience such as this ahead of them, some women still choose to have an abortion through medication.
Earlier this year, the Brookings Institution laid out hypothetical scenarios in which law enforcement officers and officials could use surveillance tools to monitor women who have what are called “self-managed” abortions. States which have gone out of their way to pass restrictive abortion laws may have an interest in seeing those laws enforced, especially as women continue having abortions despite the Dobbs decision saying such is no longer a guaranteed right.
To do so would mean controlling women’s bodies and women’s actions. Every pregnant woman could become a criminal suspect, even if all they do is post on social media. That happened to Celeste Burgess, a resident of Norfolk, Nebraska, when her direct messages on Facebook were used as evidence in case brought by the Madison County Attorney’s Office.
Burgess, 17 at the time of the investigation, had claimed to have a miscarriage in a bathtub while 29 weeks pregnant. Nebraska state law at the time prohibited abortions over 20 weeks. Her Facebook messages reveal she had sought an abortion through usage of medicine. After obtaining the messages, prosecutors claimed she had burned the remains of the fetus she aborted.
The result: Celeste was charged with “removing, concealing or abandoning a human body, which is a felony, and with concealing the death of another person and false reporting, which are misdemeanors.”
Her mother faced five criminal counts: “performing an abortion after 20 weeks; performing an abortion as a non-doctor; and removing, concealing or abandoning a human body. She also faces two misdemeanors: concealing a death and false reporting.”
In 2023, Burgess received 90 days in jail following a plea agreement.
In Missouri, Republican lawmakers sought to prevent women from traveling out of state to seek an abortion.
Local lawmakers in Texas made it illegal to transport a person who was seeking an abortion out of state.
In 2021, Texas introduced SB (Senate Bill) 8, which prohibited abortion up to six weeks- earlier than most women realize they are even pregnant. The bill was drafted deliberately to prevent state officials from reviewing it. Any challenge to the bill had to come from private civil proceedings, a process most low-income people would not be able to afford.
The bill also had a bounty provision: anyone who brought a lawsuit against a person who “knowingly aids or abets” a person who had an abortion after six weeks would be eligible for a $10,000 reward in damages from the defendant, in the event they win their case.
The message from all the anti-abortion laws and rulings are clear: women who are pregnant must carry the child to term no matter what. Anyone who fails to do so, even if the miscarriage is natural, can be prosecuted.
This happened to Brittany Poolaw, a native of Oklahoma. She was sentenced to four years in prison for first-degree manslaughter of her unborn child after she had a miscarriage in a hospital.
The entire anti-abortion movement is predicated on the right to life- the right of a child to be born and to live. However, as is too often the case, the rights of the mother are not considered. She, in the eyes of pro-life activists, is nothing more than reproductive system with life support functions.
Disastrous Consequences
On May 25, 2023, Jennifer Lubell reported for the American Medical Association’s website that maternal mortality rates were the highest they had ever been since 1965 (58 years ago). Among the data studied, Lubell suggested black women have a higher maternal mortality rate than white women.
Other contributing factors identified were: poor insurance coverage, lack of interprofessional teams trained in best practices, closure of maternity units, hypertension, and diabetes. The data studied was from 2021, before the Dobbs decision.
After Dobbs, some doctors refuse to provide prenatal health care for fear they will be charged with a crime if the child’s life cannot be saved. This was the case in two hospitals: one in Joplin, Missouri and the other in Kansas City, Kansas. The same woman, Mylissa Farmer, sought care at both hospitals.
Farmer’s water broke at 17 weeks pregnant, 7 weeks before the guidelines in Roe which held that a fetus becomes viable at 24 weeks. 17 weeks is early in the second trimester. At this point, fetal development is underway for six weeks, with another 10 weeks left to go.
Farmer’s amniotic fluid had emptied out. She was at risk of losing her uterus and/or getting a serious infection. Neither hospital would terminate the pregnancy because they could detect a heartbeat. Doing so would constitute an abortion procedure.
A federal investigation later found that the hospitals were in violation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. For their part, had either hospital performed the procedure that would ensure Farmer’s health and safety, they may have been subject to prosecution by state laws which prohibit abortion. There may have been no way for them to avoid breaking the law in either instance.
A study by the CMC in August 2023 found that one in five women reported mistreatment while receiving maternity care. As Dr. Rodriguez-Trias had seen first hand, disparities in care were reported in higher rates for black, hispanic, and multi-racial women. Types of insurance providers also played a role in whether a woman was treated well or not. Women with private insurance reported they had been mistreated 16% of the time.
Texas law states an abortion may not be performed even when the fetus has a severe abnormality. State law leaves it up to doctors to determine whether an abortion is warranted. In May 2024, the Texas State Supreme Court ruled against the plaintiffs in the case of Zurawski v. State of Texas.
The lawsuit was brought forth by a group of twenty women and two doctors who dealt with pregnancy complications, but were unable to receive or give care due to the state’s abortion laws. The lawsuit did not seek a repeal of the abortion ban, but attempted to bring clarity to circumstances in which exceptions could be allowed.Doctors who violate state law can lose their medical licenses, face up to 99 years in prison, and be subject to fines up to $100,000.
Amanda Zurawski, the suit’s primary plaintiff, claimed to have faced medical complications in 2022 during her pregnancy around 18 weeks. She had “castastrophic complications” which resulted in her going into sepsis and spending three days in an intensive care unit.
Doctors eventually performed an abortion on Zurawski, albeit a delayed one. By the time she recovered, she was advised not to become pregnant again. She then sought options regarding in-vitro fertilization in which she would donate her eggs and allow a surrogate mother to carry a child.
She ended up having to move her embryos out of state fearing restrictive laws Texas would place on in-vitro fertilization (IVF).
Her concern was based in part on a February 2024 ruling from the Alabama State Supreme Court claiming that parents had the right to sue over the death of a minor child, regardless of its location. Citing a law from 1872, the court declared that embryos should be afforded the same rights as human beings.
Now, in the state of Alabama, if embryos are lost due to accident or through no fault of anyone, the storage facility keeping them may be subject to civil penalties. The ruling had a chilling effect on IVF facilities which made them operate with greater caution than before.
Prior to the ruling, IVF was an option women could utilize to have a child if they suffered from natural infertility.
In March 2023, Megan Leonhardt of Yahoo! Finance reported more American women are single than ever, despite financial complications that arise from having a single-income home. Cited in the article is a report from Wells Fargo Economics entitled: “A Party of One: How Single Women Stack Up in the U.S. Economy.”
It is perhaps not surprising to find so many women choosing to be single during a time when becoming pregnant offers so many legal hazards- even if the child is wanted in the household. Accompanying this trend is a group of depressed men who self-identify as incels (involuntarily celibate). These are men who desire to have sexual relations with a woman, but find themselves unable to do so. Incel culture, such as it is, often commingles with misogynistic ideologies.
A Conclusion Without Hope
Despite President Joe Biden saying repeatedly that he would make “Roe the law of the land,” there’s nothing to indicate during his single four-year presidential term that he was able to do so. Nor does it appear the early efforts of the groups CASA and CARASA have had staying power as Republicans at the state and federal level try to claw back every progressive achievement they can.
While forced sterilization, historically used to target members of minority groups and those with developmental disabilities, is largely relegated to history books, for Amanda Zurawski and women like her, the terminology used to describe her situation and those of the past is a distinction without a difference.
Due to Republican laws, she now finds herself in a position where she cannot have a child of her own. She is, in addition, stuck in state that is particularly hostile to women who become pregnant even while its leaders extol the sanctity of life during pregnancy.
Unfortunately, while I would like to end this article on a positive note, no change appears ready to come anytime soon. The Supreme Court is not likely to reverse itself in any ruling after reversing 49 years of legal precedent. State legislatures, currently constituted, are ready to continue imposing bans and restrictions as much as they can regardless of the consequences.
For women living in states with laws unfavorable to their interests, they may be prosecuted even when they try to get around those laws. Women who miscarry at a hospital can be jailed, depending on the state.
Those who choose to be single face backlash from men who would like not to be single. There is little choice for women except to dodge about from risky situation to risky situation, trying to stay out of prison- or die from pregnancy complications.
Fertility rates in America have dropped to “historic lows,” according to a CMC report from April 2024. For this, conservatives have no one to blame but themselves.