In 1995, while working as a legislative assistant for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), one of us advised state ACLU affiliates how to deal with bills restricting abortion rights. It's impossible to forget a harrowing phone call received one day from an affiliate in an upper Midwest state. The state legislature was considering a parental consent bill, and the parental notification law had already wreaked havoc on young lives, as she explained, "We had a case where a young girl was raped daily by her father, starting at age five. At 13, she became pregnant. A relative decided to help her and scheduled an abortion. The father was notified, and the night before the procedure, he shot and killed her."
While pregnancy can be a joyous and miraculous event for those who freely choose it, forced pregnancy and childbirth is violence. It is sexual abuse. It is trauma. There exists no other comparable situation in which a human being (who is not incarcerated) is forced to undergo a potentially traumatic and even deadly medical event against their will. Legally mandating that a person continue an unwanted pregnancy — as the Supreme Court now appears poised to do — will destroy lives and futures. We know this because it happened prior to the Roe v. Wade in the U.S., and it happens all over the world.
