Abortion Won at the Polls, but Is It Enough?
This really is an endless war…
Young woman, 19, brutally raped. Discovers pregnancy at 16 weeks. Her state limits abortion to 15 weeks. One week. A single week separates this woman from her basic human rights. We multiply this story by thousands while celebrating “victories” at the polls that barely scratch the surface of the problem.
Look into the eyes of every woman forced to travel hundreds of miles, abandon work and family, to exercise control over her own body.
Ten states voted on our rights — as if human rights were shelf commodities. Eight voted in favor, and some call this progress.
The math of oppression is clear: in Florida, 57% isn’t enough to guarantee bodily autonomy. We need 60% to change the constitution.
In what other scenario do we accept that a 40% minority dictates rules over the majority’s bodies?
Is this the democracy we defend?
A doctor told me, in tears: “I had to watch a patient bleed for six hours while lawyers debated whether her life was ‘sufficiently at risk’ to justify an emergency abortion.” Meanwhile, politicians debate definitions of “fetal viability” in air-conditioned rooms.