So you're happy that the Arizona Supreme Court has reverted to an 1864 law banning abortion, even in the case of rape or incest? Good for you.
*slow clap*
You're probably one of the people who rejoiced or gloated when Roe vs. Wade was overturned. I know you didn't consider that there were 65,000+ rape victims, including children, and victims of incest who would now be forced to carry their traumas to term so you would feel you had done your self-righteous job and could pat yourself on the back. I know you didn't consider the women who very much wanted their pregnancies, but their pregnancies were now not viable. I know you didn't consider having to watch a real, live woman grieve and process even more trauma just so you could feel like you got a "W" for righteousness.
But I get it.
I used to go to "pro-life" rallies and believe that I knew what was best for everyone according to scriptures that were intentionally mistranslated and misinterpreted to push an agenda. I used to march in Washington to declare my support for embryos... that is until I realized that pro-gestation is not equal to pro-life.
When it hit me, my mind opened and quickly started to change.
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When I used to attend those rallies, my support for the unborn did not extend past the completion of gestation, nor, from my personal experience, does it extend past that period for most "pro-lifers." But all I had to do was meet real people who had been in the positions I mentioned and try to put myself in their shoes. Empathy.
All I had to do was a tiny bit of research to understand what the actual statistics were on abortion in the United States, and that they were not what was relayed to me by agenda-driven fearmongers. Talk to women who had had abortions, whose stories were real and were not embellished and pushed by the right-wing, "pro-life" agenda. Truth.
All I had to do was imagine that I had a young daughter who had been assaulted and was now carrying something inside her body that, every minute, reminded her of the horror she experienced. Compassion.
All I had to do was talk to many adoptees, adopters, and birth moms about how adoption didn't go as they thought it would, and that it was more traumatic in the long run than they had expected. Grieving with those who grieve.
Being pro-gestation and believing your personal, religion-based stance is correct and should apply to everyone sounds so good when you're in the righteousness bubble. But...
Unless you are willing to vote for legislation and funding that aids those who give birth to children they were forced to keep and the unwanted children who are born and end up being abused and neglected, you are not pro-life.
Unless you are willing to adopt growing children and adolescents who are in the foster system (not cute little babies), you are not pro-life, and you should never tell a woman (or little girl, in some cases) that adoption is the best option for her.
If you can do research on the number of lives that have been taken by mistake to enact the death penalty and still support such a barbaric practice, you are not pro-life. One mistake is too many.
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If you're considering this Arizona decision a "W," here are some tidbits for you. Let's discuss some other legislation that Civil War-era Arizona enacted in the same code, shall we? Remember that all of this legislation was written by one white man, Judge William T. Howell, and aptly named "The Howell Code" in 1864. The elected officials then approved the code.
In 1864, "The legislature provided that '[n]o black or mulatto, or Indian, Mongolian, or Asiatic, shall be permitted to [testify in court] against any white person,' thus making it impossible for them to protect their property, their families, or themselves from their white neighbors. It declared that 'all marriages between a white person and a [Black person], shall…be absolutely void.' (Richardson, H. 2024)"
They also determined that the age of sexual consent should be 10 years of age...gross. Dueling was made punishable by up to 3-5 years in prison. Someone could be imprisoned for 2-5 years for trying to administer poison to a pregnant woman unless it was a doctor who was trying to help save her life. The legislators granted two divorces, one for a male member of the House of Representatives. They also established a county road. Yay.
So, in 1864, twenty-seven white dudes enacted a series of laws that, among other things, openly discriminated against black people and other people of color and determined that 10-year-olds were able to consent to sex (Richardson, H, 2024).
So if you're happy that Arizona is reverting to an 1864 law, why not revert to all of them from that same code?
Oh, that's right.
Because they do not recognize the rights and personhood of anyone other than white folks, specifically men. And somehow we understand nowadays that that is not okay, buuuuut...
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