You might have a point there.

However, the perspective that this is a threat to the woman's mental health doesn't hold true for the majority of women in this situation. More than 3/4ths of rape and incest victims carry their baby to full-term. Some give it up for adoption and some raise the child. The majority of these women in this situation feel more empowered by this rather than letting an a******n doctor literally rape then again with a barbaric procedure. This is a way of their taking control and not saying the rapist won. It is a way for them to assert that they will not be victimized a second time. And quite often these women come out of this ordeal with an even greater respect for the sanctity of human life and justice for others. Nevertheless, the number of pregnancies that result from rape or incest is generally less than 1% in the U.S.A. Not so in other parts of the world, especially during wars, societal disruption or disintegration. When was the last time Alabama went to war with anyone?

I do wonder why this is not mentioned in the bill.

What a BRAVE woman! To do this and not be cowered by the feminist movement or ideology into thinking she must have an a******n and then be victimized all over again by an a******n doctor.

Emily, does your niece's daughter know the circumstances of her birth? It doesn't really matter, but if she does your niece took the bull by the horns and did a beautiful act, she brought a talented individual into the world and made some adoptive parents very happy. I am so happy that your niece has found a way to deal with this, and I am glad that the story turned out the way it did. Now your niece and grandniece have a beautiful family. What better way is there to ease the pain and heal? I can think of none.

If she has chosen a******n instead, do you think she would have ever reconciled her feelings and anger with what happened and would she have been able to move forward with her life without the trauma and guilt from feeling that maybe she did something wrong? God Bless her!

What a BRAVE woman! To do this and not be cowered by the feminist movement or ideology into thinking she must have an a******n and then be victimized all over again by an a******n doctor.

Emily, does your niece's daughter know the circumstances of her birth? It doesn't really matter, but if she does your niece took the bull by the horns and did a beautiful act, she brought a talented individual into the world and made some adoptive parents very happy. I am so happy that your niece has found a way to deal with this, and I am glad that the story turned out the way it did. Now your niece and grandniece have a beautiful family. What better way is there to ease the pain and heal? I can think of none.

If she has chosen a******n instead, do you think she would have ever reconciled her feelings and anger with what happened and would she have been able to move forward with her life without the trauma and guilt from feeling that maybe she did something wrong? God Bless her!

Part 2

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp speaking last week after signing into law the six-week a******n ban. Stacey Abrams, the Democratic politician who narrowly lost to Brian Kemp who was the secretary of state, the Republican governor’s race, tweeted after the bill was signed into law, “Bad policies like the forced pregnancy bill are a direct result of v**er suppression. If leaders can silence Georgians’ voices at the b****t box, they can ignore Georgians’ voices when in office. We will fight back in court and at the v****g booth,” she said. Monica Simpson, if you can talk about what happened on the ground in Georgia, and particularly how these a******n bans affect women of color?

MONICA SIMPSON: Absolutely. On the ground, we have been working together collectively. We, across different organizations—across our sectors of reproductive health, rights, and justice—formed the Georgia Coalition for Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice to be in lockstep, to be in connection with each other as we were fighting on the ground, moving at the grassroots level all the way up to the state house house, to make sure that we were educating our communities, amplifying the needs and the voices of the most marginalized in our community, to really fight back against this.

And what’s interesting whenever I hear Kemp say that we need to make courageous decisions and that we should not make the easy decisions—there are so many things that Georgia could be actually fighting for that would actually impact the lives of those living in the margins. We are a state where we’re at the very bottom when it comes to maternal mortality and we see that black women are dying at a rate four times higher than white women in childbirth. We are a state that has yet to expand Medicaid. We are a state where we still need to be making sure that we are creating economic opportunities for people to be able to survive and thrive.

But instead of really focusing on those issues which have been what our folks on the ground have asked for of our elected officials, of the governor of our state, instead we’re moving forward measures that actually decrease access and put people at risk. And when we have things like a six-week a******n ban in place and if that’s something that moves forward, which we are going to fight every single day to make sure that it doesn’t, things like that, when you put those different measures in place, we know who gets impacted the most. It’s folks of color, marginalized communities, young people. Those folks—their lives are the ones that are most at risk.

So instead of listening to the folks of Georgia and listening to the needs of the people of Georgia, we have folks in office who are really focused on moving their political agenda and using our bodies and our wombs as collateral. And we say no more to that. And so we are working together collectively to build that people power to make sure that we are fighting this at every level that we must possibly can. But on the ground, we have been working diligently to build that collective power to make sure that we have what is necessary for us to fight this at every level.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Jessica Mason Pieklo, I’m wondering if you could talk about Ohio, a key obviously battleground state in the upcoming p**********l race, and the a******n law there.

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO: Right. Well, we have seen Ohio try to enact as many anti-a******n measures as they can, including one of these six-week bans in addition to a ban on later a******n which is tied up in the courts. And you mentioned, Ohio is a battleground state. And I think it’s really important to bring this back into this idea of disenfranchisement and who is passing this and why. We have seen success from the last 40 years of having broader access to reproductive health services and the ability to plan families and to try and parent as we choose. And so it is no surprise that in those states where some of those advances have taken place in rapid form, we’re seeing such a pushback.

And so I so appreciate Stacey Abrams making that connection in terms of disenfranchisement. I don’t think we can say that enough. These are bills that are designed to keep people out of civic life and out of the political process. And so Ohio is an excellent example of this, where there is good support for a******n rights and access on the ground and in its citizenry, but the politicians are using the power that they have right now to try and stymie that. And it is important because Ohio sits in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, and that is also a federal circuit court of appeals that has been newly made more conservative thanks to Trump appointees. And so again, when I talk about this as a political campaign that’s being waged in the courts, those are the dots that I hope people are starting to connect, because they are all connected.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you actually see Roe being overturned?

JESSICA MASON PIEKLO: That’s an excellent question. I do. I think that there are two paths that conservatives can take. They can continue on an incrementalist approach, which we are seeing them attempting in the states through various types of procedure bans, through TRAP restrictions that we have talked about previously on this show. Or they can go for the brass ring and go for Roe altogether. And we’re seeing them take that path now.

The question will be ultimately what stomach does Chief Justice John Roberts have for overturning precedent here. We’ve seen early indications that he is uncomfortable by some of the political nature of what is happening. However, when it comes to a substantive v**e in defense of a******n rights, Chief Justice John Roberts has yet to cast one in favor of a******n rights on the merits. And so I think that it is well within our concern to think that Roe v. Wade could be overturned in the next several years.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to end with a video that went v***l just a few months ago. It is Georgia Democratic State Senator Jen Jordan speaking against the a******n ban on the Georgia State Senate floor in March.

STATE SEN. JEN JORDAN: The deepest, darkest times of my life have occurred in the presence of and with my physician. You see, I have been pregnant 10 times. I have seen what many of you in here have called a heartbeat 10 times. But I have only given birth twice. I have lost seven pregnancies in varying points of time before 20 weeks, and one after five months. Her name was Juliet. I have laid on the cold examination table while a doctor desperately looked for a heartbeat. I have been escorted out the back door of my physician’s office so as not to upset the other pregnant women in the waiting area, my grief on full display and uncontainable. I have been on my knees time after time in prayer to my God about my losses. I have loved each and every single one of those potential lives, and my husband and I have grieved each passing. But no matter my faith, my beliefs, my losses, I have never, ever strayed from the basic principle that each woman, each woman must be able to make her decisions in consultation with her God and her family. It is not for the government or the men of this chamber to insert itself in the most personal, private and wrenching decisions that make every single day. And that is not some smily, happy statement that has been focus-grouped; that is the reality of our lives. […] And let me be clear. If you shirk the most basic duties you have to protect the fundamental rights of women today, then no doubt the women of this state will reclaim their rights after they have claimed your seats.

AMY GOODMAN: That is Georgia State Senator Jen Jordan speaking in March. And that does it for this segment. We want to thank Monica Simpson, executive director of Sister Song, a Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective based in Atlanta, Georgia. And Jessica Mason Pieklo, legal analyst and vice president of law and the courts at Rewire.News. She is co-author of Crow After Roe: How “Separate But Equal” Has Become the New Standard in Women’s Health and How We Can Change That. Her forthcoming book, The end of Roe v. Wade: Inside the Right’s Plan to Destroy Legal A******n. This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman with
Juan González.