The Consequences of Voting Church into State
Photo by Heather Mount on Unsplash
My home state is now essentially a theocracy
I had to sit on this one for a day. That’s how angry I was about it. The road to get here has been horrible. The truth of the matter is — freedom from another person’s religion no longer exists in many parts of this country.
I could see this coming a mile away. People don’t understand what kind of extremists the far right really are. I feel like most people, especially outside of the Bible Belt, underestimate them.
I don’t get why they would after a majority-conservative Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade — but here we are. Restrictive abortion laws are going up in any red state that can manage it. Book bans and anti-LGBTQ laws are the new rage. Women are having a difficult time getting contraception. And in Alabama, frozen embryos are considered children.
Yeah. That’s a thing, now.
Because the law is so vague, there is no way to tell what makes up a legal offense against a bunch of frozen cells in a cryogenic container. Therefore, to avoid legal action, it makes sense for all IVF programs in the State of Alabama to shut down immediately.
In vitro fertilization, or IVF, is when clinicians remove an egg from a woman’s body and combine it with sperm inside a laboratory before implanting it into a woman’s uterus. It’s a treatment for infertility, a condition in which a person can’t get pregnant after at least a year of trying for most.
However, because of the Alabama Supreme Court’s religiously driven decision, this treatment may not be available. The justices issued the decision in a pair of wrongful death cases brought by three couples who had frozen embryos destroyed in an accident at a fertility clinic. Citing a state law from 1872 that allows parents to sue over the death of a minor child, the court ruled that this “applies to all unborn children, regardless of their location.”
This tells me that every decision that comes before this, the highest court in the state, will be decided by the religion of those justices and not on the merit of law.
This is what happens when you get an all-Republican court, especially if those justices are also far-right evangelicals. I’m sure the people of Alabama thought nothing of this. After all, these are “good churchgoing men and women.”
However, they placed their belief and religion over the rights of people. You might as well say the people of Alabama are living in a theocracy. Good people who are going to tell you how to act according to their interpretation of the Bible. Your interpretation doesn’t matter.
Remember how pastors taught about that “personal relationship with Jesus and God” in Sunday school? Apparently, that was all bullshit. You elected people who are doing their job according to what they believe God wants them to do…not what is best for the people of your state. It’s all about their interpretation. Now you can just live with it.
The Alabama Supreme Court and the politicians and people who voted for them are responsible for screwing over the state and a vast population of women living there. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
I mean, they had already begun the process when passing those anti-abortion laws and refusing extra funding to expand Medicaid.
Need me to break it down for you? Sure thing. I lived most of my life there and still have family and friends there, so I keep track of the news like this. But for you, a quick Google search can verify what I’m about to tell you.
Alabama bans abortions at any stage of pregnancy with no exceptions for rape and incest. The only exemption is if it’s needed because pregnancy seriously threatens the pregnant patient’s health. The court had previously ruled that fetuses killed while a woman is pregnant are covered under Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.
Because doctors fear being sued or incarcerated and having their licenses revoked because they may need to deal with an abortion, fewer doctors who specialize in obstetrics and gynecology will be going to school or practicing in the state of Alabama.
The state of Alabama has never accepted federal funding to expand Medicaid in the state — meaning healthcare providers may not get paid for services to uninsured populations.
All practices that shut down because of this must let go of all of their staff and stop providing money to service providers, equipment providers, etc. If there are businesses dependent upon the larger population of doctors and staff in a certain area, and those customers are no longer available, that causes them to lose money. It’s a domino effect.
And now, due to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling on embryos, all practices within fertility clinics — most of which include IVF — may be considered dangerous to the life of frozen, microscopic “children”.
According to the news this afternoon, UAB (the University of Alabama at Birmingham), the major medical facility in the state along with several other fertility clinics, are pausing their programs. This will lose another major component of healthcare throughout the state.
New doctors won’t be able to go to Alabama for proper training in gynecology, obstetrics, or fertility. So why would any of these specialists want to try and practice in the state? We’re about to see Alabama become a desert for proper women’s health care.
Photo by Imani Bahati on Unsplash
They are taking rights away from women. Period.
In the state of Alabama, if you get pregnant and you don’t want to be, too damn bad. They’re not expanding Medicaid. They have only raised SNAP benefits by 3% in years. And they are not raising the minimum wage. But you better believe that unless the birth will kill the parent, that baby will be born.
In the state of Alabama, if you want a child desperately, and are willing to go through the roller coaster ride that is fertility treatment — you may not have anywhere to turn for that kind of care. The people of Alabama will have no options for fertility care so long as this ruling stands.
Why? Because God told them you shouldn’t have rights over your own body and medical care. Cells in a uterus or in a frozen container have more rights than a woman. They didn’t even hide that fact.
In the state of Alabama, the religious right controls you and your body.
Do you want to know what’s even more frightening to me, as a woman in another reddish state? If one state can do it, when will the others follow?
By the way, sane people of Alabama — all nine judges on the court were either elected in partisan elections as Republicans or appointed by a Republican governor. Do you think maybe you should figure out how to change that?