They are actually going to do it. This doesn’t affect me directly. I am perimenopausal and lacking a uterus. I’m also well off enough that, if the worst were to happen, I could skip off to another state or even another country to take care of things. By which I mean have or help a loved one get an abortion.
Access to healthcare in this country is fraught. Not only is it tied to our employers there are many exceptions, loopholes, to the obligation of an employer to offer it. Part time workers, farm workers, domestic staff, and people who work for small companies all may not be able to access health insurance through their jobs.
Even if they do offer it there is no guarantee that it will be affordable at the salary that they pay you. One of the people I met in Korea had been a teacher in Washington state. Part of the reason he and his family left was the cost health insurance for his family of four. (I want to say it was around $4000 a month, but that sounds obscene.)
If you are one of the lucky ones who has affordable healthcare, you still may not get paid maternity leave as there is no national law mandating it. Many employees offer it but even then, much may depend on your position in the company. An executive may get 6 moths of paid leave while a janitor may get none. Once the child is born childcare costs can be equal or more than a year’s salary which can force people, mostly women, to drop out of the workforce entirely.
Add in the highest maternity mortality rates, the highest infant death rates, the highest percentage of children living in poverty in comparison to all other economically developed countries and the idea of removing access to abortion in this country seems absolutely bonkers.
If someone needs blood and I am the only person who can give it to them, I cannot be forced to do so. Even though it is a simple, relatively painless procedure, with low risk. Even if it will save their life. If I die my organs may not be harvested without my permission even though my corneas may bring someone sight, my heart, lungs, liver, or kidneys may save a life, or experimentation on my body my bring forth a medical miracle. Even if you think that life begins at conception and that that life has equal value to that of any human being on this earth by making abortion illegal, we, as a society, are giving living, breathing women fewer rights than we give a corpse.
I mean, seriously. Wtf, y’all?