Dispatch #105 White Lesbian Age 71 Considers Normalizing Torture of Women

June 14th 2023  

844 Days Since Inauguration of First Woman Vice-President

251 Days Until the 2024 Presidential Primaries Begin 

357 Days Since Supremes Ruled Women’s Human Rights Don’t Matter

We are approaching June 24^th marking one year since the Supreme Court ruled that women can be forced to give birth, essentially ruling that women’s human rights and bodily autonomy can be legally violated.  The consequences for girls and women were immediate and shockingly grim.

Within 30 days of June 24^th 2022, 13 states banned access to abortion care. Within 100 days, 66 clinics in 15 states closed.  Abortion care is currently illegal or heavily restricted in 22 states impacting upwards of 40 million women of child-bearing age (Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming).  

These consequences have been catastrophic working class and poor women, primarily black women and women of color.  Even before Dobbs, Black women were three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications in the United States.

Here is the call to arms for changing the public discourse: It’s Time to Call Abortion Bans What They Are—Torture and Cruelty www.thenation.com/article/society/abortion-bans-torture-cruelty/. Authors Paval and Akila Radhakrishnan declare “The US must learn from other countries where denials of abortion [care] are considered intentional, state-inflicted torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.” 

On August 24, 2022, Mayron Hollis sought an abortion after receiving news that her pregnancy was endangering her life and its continuation would likely result in uterine rupture and organ damage. Unfortunately, August 24 was also the day that Tennessee’s near-total ban on abortion went into effect. Denied care in her own state and unable to travel to one where she could get the care she needed, Hollis was forced to endure a dangerous pregnancy and birth, where she ultimately suffered severe hemorrhaging and lost her uterus, destroying her ability to give birth to any more children.

There are many terms to describe Mayron Hollis’s experience of being denied an abortion in Tennessee—harrowing, agonizing, unconscionable—but we should also call it what it is: torture and cruelty.

In their March 2023 briefing paper for the UN titled Human Rights Crisis: Abortion in the United States After Dobbs,  Human Rights Watch summarizes their detailed findings:

The consequences of the Dobbs decision are wide ranging. Restrictions on access to healthcare places women’s lives and health at risk, leading to increased maternal mortality and morbidity, a climate of fear among healthcare providers, and reduced access to all forms of care. Dobbs also enables penalization and criminalization of healthcare, with providers, patients, and third parties at risk of prosecution or civil suit for their involvement in private healthcare decisions. 

Relatedly, the decision opens the door to widespread infringement of privacy rights as digital surveillance is expanded to detect violations of new regulations. New bans also infringe on freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief, restricting the ability of physicians to counsel patients and clergy to provide pastoral care to their congregants. Finally, the harms of Dobbs violate principles of equality and non-discrimination; they fall disproportionately on marginalized populations including Black, indigenous, and people of color; people with disabilities; immigrants; and those living in poverty.

By overturning the established constitutional protection for access to abortion and through the passage of restrictive state laws, the US is in violation of its obligations under international law, codified in a number of human rights treaties to which it is a party or a signatory. These human rights obligations include, but are not limited to, the rights to: life; health; privacy; liberty and security of person; to be free from torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief; equality and non-discrimination; and to seek, receive, and impart information.  www.hrw.org/news/2023/04/18/human-rights-crisis-abortion-united-states-after-dobbs  

An undeniable state of emergency exists for women and girls in the US….and yet, the normalizing dynamics continue unabated.  

In “The Press is Falling for Anti-Abortion “Fetal Heartbeat” Propaganda,” Judith Levine calls out the press for parroting and spreading falsehoods.  While state legislative language bans abortion care “at 6 weeks when fetal heartbeat is detected,” the term fetal heartbeat isn’t accurate until around 17 to 20 weeks, when the four chambers of the heart have developed and can be detected on an ultrasound.  

As San Francisco OB-GYN Dr. Jennifer Kerns told NPR: ‘What we’re really detecting [at 6 weeks] is a grouping of cells that are initiating some electrical activity. In no way is this detecting a functional cardiovascular system or a functional heart.’” https://theintercept.com/2023/05/27/abortion-fetal-heartbeat-propaganda-press-coverage/ 

The press cannot get a pass for uncritically repeating this legislative language and thus normalizing anti-abortion care propaganda.   

We must demand that all public discourse participants call out the ‘fetal heartbeat at 6 weeks’ lie.