In courts and legislatures across the US – including in the supreme court – conservative lawmakers are debating just how close to death a woman must be before she can access an emergency abortion when the procedure is otherwise banned. How much suffering must she endure? How much irreparable damage? Which of her organs is dispensable? Which bodily functions are truly essential? What would be enough mortal risk? Enough mortal terror?
There is no viable foetus in these cases, no promise of new life – just a dying woman forced to prove she has a life worth saving. It’s the bureaucracy of it that chills me most, the bloodless, paper-pushing cruelty.
