The Birthing Vessel Law
When I was 19, visiting my parents’ home on the campus of a small rural college in the Deep South, my girlfriend and I wanted to walk to the tiny store a mile or so down the road. Given that it was dusk, my father was adamant that we should not.
“But why?”
“Because people think women who go out after dark are asking for it!” He snarled this response, and I felt chastised. Here was a social rule I had apparently failed to learn.
Had I been born male, the trip to the store would have been acceptable.
I’m still hard-headed. I cannot understand how an embryo can have more rights than a full-fledged human with heart, brain, and living history. Yet that is what our legislators have told us with their trigger law. Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, Arkansas women who conceive—under any circumstances—are instantly reduced to the status of birthing vessel. Their wants and needs shall be utterly disregarded, as if they were inanimate objects. Of utmost importance is the protection of the “innocent” embryo within.
The men who impregnate these women shall bear no burden. They can still walk to the store after sunset—so to speak.
If there is any literate Arkansan who cannot see how banning abortion even in the early stages is actually about keeping women “in their place,” our schools are doing worse than I thought at teaching kids how to reason. Unless and until men are held equally accountable for each and every pregnancy, the prohibition of abortion is effectively about controlling women. Just like making women fearful to walk to the store at dusk.
If this was truly about “innocent children,” there would be good homes, free access to medical facilities, wholesome affordable childcare, and buckets of food waiting for each of these babies. But there is not. And women will bear the burden of supplying these things. The birthing vessel law all but promises deeper poverty for women and children.
The Democrat-Gazette quoted Jerry Cox, founder and president of the Family Council, a conservative and pro-life organization in Arkansas, regarding his stance on abortion in the face of rape: “We shouldn’t punish the child for the crime of the father. Rape and incest are terrible crimes. Anyone who commits these crimes should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. The abortion does not erase the hurt or trauma of the rape or incest of a victim.”
It’s true, an abortion won’t negate the trauma of rape. But forcing a woman to bear the child against her will undoubtedly increases the trauma tremendously. And while it is nice of Mr. Cox to want to punish all the rapists, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network tells us “Out of every 1000 sexual assaults, 975 perpetrators will walk free.” I’m afraid Mr. Cox is just whistling Dixie—and in this case Dixie stands for the negation of women’s rights. Pure and simple.
Any female legislator (or Supreme Court justice) who supports the institution of the birthing vessel law should review the history of desperate women and girls butchered in back alley rooms—because history is about to repeat itself. If she is old enough to actually remember the days before Roe v. Wade, she should have her head examined.