Another year begins. I’m grateful to The Daily Star for giving me, in 2024 and now, the opportunity to write a monthly column from a progressive standpoint. It’s a platform I both savor and value.
Many thanks as well to the readers, especially those who reached out last year with your reaction to a column. Brevity is the soul of wit, wrote Shakespeare; writing 800 words on any subject, let alone modern politics, is an exercise in organizing my thoughts; doing so has made me (I hope, I think!) a better writer, possibly even making me less long-winded in real life (maybe?).
As for the stories that have stuck with me from 2024, there are two on the subject of abortion care in the U.S. I cannot seem to shake, because they saddened me, as well as made me deeply, personally angry. One, from historian and New Yorker contributor Jill Lepore, concerned a female friend of hers who was traveling in a red state down south, Arkansas or Alabama; that detail escapes me; she might not have said.
Lepore’s friend, who was four months into a wanted pregnancy, began bleeding during her visit south. Seeking care at the nearest hospital, she was turned away because “fetal heartbeat”, and abortion care of any kind was, therefore, verboten. Verboten is German for forbidden; what women and girls are being forced to go through throughout large swaths of this country reminds me so much of Germany both before and during World War II, I keep slipping up. Entschuldigung!
Lapore’s friend was told to go home to her own doctor and hospital, 1,000 miles away by air, but as a nodding sop to care, she was handed an adult diaper. This detail troubles me because I know that if I were given an adult diaper when what I needed was serious medical attention, I would likely end up in jail due to what I believe is considered assault and battery (screaming, punching and kicking), or, as Colonel Klink would’ve put it, körperverletzung und körperverletzung!
But do I have the consequence for assault and battery right? I will consult my local sheriff, a word that is conveniently the same in English and German. Now doesn’t that make sense?
And then there’s Nevaeh Crain, an 18-year-old evangelical Christian, one of eight siblings born and raised in Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbot promised in 2021 to “eradicate rape” and abortion, after signing the state’s abortion care ban. Nevaeh discovered she was pregnant shortly before graduating high school, but that was okay because she loved her boyfriend and vice versa; they intended to marry. As a fervent pro-lifer, she also wanted her pregnancy to succeed.
On the day of her baby shower, however, Nevaeh was feverish, and began to experience abdominal cramping. She was miscarrying; the first two hospitals she visited — in pain, running a temperature, obviously unwell — refused to treat her miscarriage as a fetal heartbeat was detected.
Both of these women lost wanted pregnancies. Both were refused needed abortion care in red states where legislators, overwhelmingly white and male, have passed laws making abortion care criminal in nature if a “heartbeat” is present. But it’s not a heartbeat, folks, it’s an electrical impulse contained in a clump of cells that may, if the pregnancy continues healthily to term, become a beating, human heart.
One of these two women died — the 18-year-old who was trapped in Texas. Lapore’s friend lost her pregnancy, but has since delivered a healthy, full-term baby. But don’t think her miscarriage wasn’t traumatic — it was, and made more so by the cruelty of being denied care.
Abbott has also not eradicated rape or sexual assault. In 2023, Texas had the highest number of reported rape cases in the U.S., and has seen an over 50% increase in maternal deaths since Roe fell; Texas is also ranked No. 1 for lacking access to prenatal and maternal care. There are about 300,000 pregnancies in the U.S. annually; one in five, or about 75,000, end in miscarriage, an undercount as many women miscarry before they’re aware they are pregnant, and don’t report those incidents. And why would any woman or girl report miscarriages in states where simply doing so might lead to criminal charges, which is happening, particularly to poor women and women of color?
Human beings deserve medical assistance, including abortion-care, when in need. Please, anyone, share a medical issue men and boys experience that would ever be refused medical care? Das gibt es nicht, ja? Ja!
As for that other really big story, the one where a smart, competent, qualified woman was defeated in a nationwide election by a volatile baby-man? We’ve seen this movie before. I don’t like horror films, especially the ones where women and girls are the first to die.