The past week has seen panicked warnings after news broke that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy will retire, allowing President Trump to nominate a second Supreme Court justice in less than two years. They’ve said the pick should be delayed and even screaming we should worry about jail time for those of us who had abortions while they remain silent about the very real issues women should be concerned with.
Those real possibilities include infection, perforated uterus, cervical damage, the risk of sterility, depression, guilt, remorse, suicidal ideation, sleep disorders, poor relationships, and even death, all from supposedly “safe, rare and legal” abortion. While such people claim they promote abortion in the interests of women, they block legislation that would warn women about the mental and physical complications of the procedure and continue to deny the negative impact of abortion on millions of women.
NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue recently claimed Trump “is going to put someone on the court who will be the fifth vote to criminalize abortion, punish women and throw them in jail.” This same fear tactic was successful in legalizing Roe v. Wade, which was itself based on lies.
Kirsten Gillibrand, the New York senator who styles herself as a defender of women’s rights, hasn’t wasted any time using Kennedy’s retirement to fuel her agenda: “Get to the polls this November, women. We’re owning our future,” Gillibrand wrote to her followers on Twitter, as if the right to kill your unborn child supersedes anything else that makes the value of a woman’s future worthwhile.
I am a post-abortive woman, and I’m tired of Democrats telling me what I should feel and using fear to push their political agenda. Even people in line with the Democratic Party are struggling.
A woman I know who is receiving counseling for post-abortion trauma notes, “As a Democrat, who likes much of the platform of social justice, Medicare for all, free college and trade schools, this is an agonizing time for me. I do not approve of many of the actions of this president and the Republican Congress, yet on abortion, I am more in sync with their views than those of the Democratic Party.”
Abortion Has Already Imprisoned Us In Sadness
Abortion may not (and I believe, never will) carry with it a jail term for women. But make no mistake about it, many of us who have experienced abortion already do life. Countless women live in the prison of anxiety, panic, depression, and even suicidal ideation because of abortion. Many are unable to conceive other children and must live with the fact that the unborn child they aborted will be their only one.
Instead of showing concern for those who suffer, Democrats spend countless time and effort to deny claims that abortion hurts women. Instead they spend their time promoting the lies and denying the real consequences for millions of women, saying there is no such thing as post-abortion stress.
Even if they have not experienced abortion themselves, many Americans have personally seen this suffering in sisters, wives, friends, and daughters who have had abortions. They have encountered first-hand the devastation abortion has caused in lives once happy and relationships once healthy, now imprisoned by despair, anger, bitterness, and grief.
Try as the pro-abortion side might to discredit these voices, people know the truth because they see the changes in those they love. So groups like NARAL are appealing to these friends and relatives by telling them those they love will be thrown in jail. Of course, no one wants her loved one in jail.
Jail Time Is Not Realistic. Health Dangers Are
The chances of jail time for women who abort are slim and just another fear tactic of those who support unrestricted abortion. Even overturning Roe would only send the abortion issue back to states, and even the most Republican states are helmed by leaders who have openly rejected the idea of criminal penalties for women who abort their children. What is reality, however, is that women are injured and have died from “safe, legal” abortion.
In May, New York doctor Dr. Robert Rho pled guilty in the bleeding death of 30-year-old Jaime Lee Morales after a botched abortion, and is awaiting sentencing. The now-infamous abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, the subject of a new film, was convicted of murder in 2013 for administering a fatal overdose of sedatives during an abortion and for snipping the spines of infants born alive during the procedure.
In 2012, Tonya Reaves, 24, died from a hemorrhage following an abortion at a Planned Parenthood in Chicago. Then there is abortionist LeRoy Carhart, who is responsible for the deaths of Christin Gilbert, 19, and Jennifer Morbelli, 29, both of whom died from abortion complications.
In 2011 a study was published in the British Journal of Psychology which combines data on 877,181 participants, showing that abortion increases the chances of depression, anxiety, alcoholism, drug use, and suicide. Sadly, these same people speaking about jail time are silent about the dangers of abortion and the devastation not only to these women, but the “sentence” for all those who loved them.
If it happens, overturning Roe v. Wade will not end abortion. Even if a conservative-stacked Supreme Court overturns the infamous court case, abortion won’t disappear. The decision of legality will revert to individual states. Our culture is such that it is utterly ludicrous to think of lawmakers anywhere penalizing women with jail time for abortions, despite the reality of what abortion does to an unborn child.
States likes New York, Connecticut, California, Maine, New Jersey, and Oregon already have laws on the books to protect abortion, while others may restrict it in certain cases. No one really knows for sure what will happen with the Supreme Court and Roe, but I hope Americans examine the truths of this decision as we honestly look at the destruction it has caused in our society.
