There are times in writing this column when one reads of a new underlying initiative with utter disbelief, almost disembodied – impersonal, and then there are ones that are even more difficult, go even deeper, that come with both the same sense of other worldliness but also rack you with a gut punch that doesn’t immediately go away, it’s very personal – that’s this one, that’s this new Missouri initiative, that’s a state that believes it needs to register pregnant women that it considers at risk of having an abortion, I suppose so that they can watch that woman (Usually a young woman) that much more closely to prevent an abortion. The idea of the state breathing down a woman’s back is bad enough when it comes to usurping all choices when it comes to reproductive healthcare, doing so with each woman registered as “pregnant” is well beyond concerning.
To make things even more mystifying, just last November, Missouri voters narrowly (But by a majority) approved instilling the right to an abortion into their state Constitution, so while the voters are going one direction, the Republicans are going another. From the St. Louis Fox affiliate we have a report on the new development:
Legislation introduced in Missouri would create a list of “at risk” pregnant women in the state in order to “reduce the number of preventable abortions.” House Bill 807, nicknamed the “Save MO Babies Act,” was proposed by Republican state Rep. Phil Amato.
The bill summary states that, if passed, Missouri would create a registry of every expecting mother in the state “who is at risk for seeking an abortion” starting July 1, 2026.
See? So you thought it was bad enough. Now, below we’ll see that they’re not even going to define what they mean by “at risk” yet, but you are likely safe in concluding that it probably goes as far as establishing that the women are minorities and-or extremely poor. Please do not concern yourselves, you are not going to see the daughter of the town’s most prominent orthopedic surgeon on that list. Indeed, that girl will go with her mother to her own doctor, there in Missouri, for “female problems,” and walk out just fine, no chart saying a thing about any pregnancy, thanks. But this registry will cover all those young women that the state really does want to police, which is all of them except the daughters of the most powerful (And the powerful dad/husband will control her, don’t worry). Onward:
The list would be created through the Maternal and Child Services division of the Department of Social Services, but the measure did not specify how the “at risk” would be identified. In November, Missouri voters narrowly approved a ballot measure to add the right to an abortion to their state constitution.
So there you have it, the law is passed but the single most important portion is left undefined. It is more than a bit scary, leaving something so open. We all know, too – that God help the woman who finds herself on this list who then miscarries. She will be in a position where she will have to prove her innocence, rather than the other way around.
It is not easy for young women these days. This past fall, I had to send my daughter from the Southeast to the Northwest to live with family and attend school up there. She is just more comfortable around fruits and nuts from the Northwest, kids like her. She wants her hiking boots, her navy-blue fleece vest, her dog going into the store with her, and her mountains, not a beach, all that Northwest stuff – and I’m a dad, I had to send her ahead of me. She deserved to be comfortable with who she is inside. After all, “who she is” encompasses a lot of what I’ve taught her from the very beginning – she’s the straight girl wearing her “Ally!” shirt walking with friends in a pride parade. She wants to be around her crowd. But when one sends a teen girl from red America to blue Washington nowadays, there is a temptation to get a negative pregnancy test in her medical records before leaving. Indeed, I simply ran out of time to take her to the MD – or I definitely would’ve done it, and her doctor would’ve helped, we’ve had conversations. That is a young girl’s reality in this America. (It is also a young girl’s dad’s reality, having to think this stuff through with her). Now imagine someone like my daughter or yours (Or you) being on a registry to be “watched” during the hardest time in her life…
My daughter’s situation wasn’t a registry, just a worry about travel and how it all looks nowadays, but if Missouri’s registry “works” expect this to become the norm in many states seeking to police pregnancies. Now imagine trying to travel if you’re on that registry, even though a pregnancy at a tender age would be one of the most legitimate reasons to travel to family elsewhere, girls and women always need more support during pregnancies, never mind pregnancies creating a tough time. My god…
So there it is, we’re starting to hear about things so incomprehensible as to constitute a gut punch of the highest magnitude. I am not sure even Missouri knows what it will do with that list, I am sure that they want it badly, so they can decide what to do with it in real time. Dangerous stuff.
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I’ve got a feeling this is a lot less about “protecting babies” and a lot more with getting “undesirables” off the “welfare rolls.” If an “at-risk” woman realizes the state’s going to be “watching” her every move while she’s pregnant, how much less likely is she going to be to enroll for the kind of benefits that would be handled by the “Maternal and Child Services division of the Department of Social Services?” If you don’t report your pregnancy with the state, they can’t track you, right?
I wonder, though, will the state’s “Maternal and Child Services division of the Department of Social Services” will also be required to keep a list of the guys who get the girls pregnant? Probably not. A guy has a dozen baby-mamas and it’s not a big deal; a girl has a dozen baby-daddies and society loses its proverbial fecal matter. Either way, you’ve got a dozen kids who don’t have two loving parents in the home.
They may be also be trying to control benefits but I think on this one it is best to trust exactly what they’re saying and that is that first and foremost they want control of that pregnancy – I don’t think one needs to get any deeper, even if there are benefits (as they define them) beyond, I think this is really simple.
jason
I kinda thought they wanted fewer Black and brown babies and more white ones? Why don’t they make abortions free for the women they don’t want making no new huge babies? And thus it should be the white girls they don’t want to abort Since the state has a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to an abortion,,I have to wonder how the state courts will rule on this if this atrocity of a bill is passed.
Let’s make it equal. Let the state keep.a list of every man who takes Viagra. And make sure he’s using it with someone 20 years younger and not his wife–and publish their names in every newspaper in the statel
Another example of people who need to “mind their own damn business!” as Tim Walz has said.
🤬🤬 There is no need for definition of at risk. Every. Pregnant. Woman. Is. At. Risk. For. An. Abortion!!! There is no way any pregnant woman, regardless of socio-economic factors, has a guarantee that a medical crisis won’t occur which leaves her needing termination of her pregnancy!! Rich, politically-connected families cannot save you from everything!!
Well, that is certainly true. But for our purposes here they do assume that there are differences in pregnancies (They don’t want a list that includes suburban middle class college educated white married women with a previous child already), and so I thought it worth mention.
It is true that every pregnant woman is at risk for an immediate emergency. Pregnancy is not a normal physical state.
jason
And any woman who miscarries–and 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriages,80% in the first trimester–what can they do to her other than shame her? Second trimester it’s 1-5%. Third trimester? 1%. What will they do to the pregnant person who miscarries in the second or third trimester?
Welcome to Gilead. I’ve never in my 60 years been afraid of being a woman – until now.