Pro-life lawmakers push 'forced-birth' laws, view women as 'incubating machines,' Washington Post op-ed says
Author Kate Manning listed pre and postpartum complications of pregnancies
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Anti-abortion lawmakers' apathy toward postpartum suffering leads them to view women as "incubation machines," according to a Washington Post op-ed.
The pro-choice piece, published Tuesday, laid the foundations of an argument in favor of women whose bodies underwent dramatic changes consequential to pregnancy and began with author Kate Manning giving a brief discussion about her postpartum bladder troubles.
"It seems important to mention how it's been leaking since my first child was born (common after childbearing) now that Roe v. Wade appears poised to fall," Manning wrote.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Should the Supreme Court overturn that decision, more than half of U.S. states plan to severely restrict abortion care and will thus mandate pregnant women to give birth and suffer such physical consequences," she added.
First moments with the baby and the excitement of being a family or parents (iStock)
Manning noted that bladder troubles are a drop in the ocean concerning postpartum struggles, going on to list C-section scars, hematomas (internal pooling of blood), breast issues, possible operative complications similar to her own, as well as the risk of death from childbirth in her delineation, arguing that women should not be forced to endure these struggles unless they choose.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Childbirth has been likened, by many of us who have experienced it, to a kind of torture. The waves of severe contractions, the pushing and splitting open, the exhaustion and suffering were such that if anyone had asked me, in labor, to reveal state secrets, I'd have divulged all, invented fabulous plots, implicated my loved ones. Anything to stop the torment," she said, adding, "But again: I chose to endure that pain."
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Manning argued that imposing pro-life policies on women revokes their right to choose by saying that "force-birth" law inflict "risks and suffering" on women without their consent, circling back to the "embarrassing," "inconvenient," "exhausting" and even "fatal" consequences of carrying a pregnancy to term.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Pro-choice demonstrators rally outside the State House during a pro-choice Mother's Day Rally in Boston, Massachusetts on May 8, 2022. (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)
"Forced-birth advocates should consider this partial list of the varieties of suffering and risks that government-mandated childbearing imposes on women who would otherwise choose to end a pregnancy: preeclampsia, eclampsia, heart attack, stroke, fistula, breast infection, hemorrhage, gestational diabetes. Death," she wrote, tacking on additional childbirth-induced ailments before delineating men as "impregnator[s]" who are at fault for unwanted pregnancies.
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The piece additionally discussed the economic and social implications of pregnancy and childbirth, noting these factors prove especially detrimental to "low-income women and women of color" and lamenting that women may not be able to afford to travel to states still offering abortion if the Supreme Court's leaked draft opinion is finalized this summer.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Manning also dove into the discussion of whether the same lawmaker would work to ensure these "unwanted" children will receive the food, shelter, clothing, love and care they need and deserve if they are forcibly born.
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"If [antiabortion lawmakers] respected women and focused on that suffering, on the risks and toll of childbearing, perhaps they would stop treating women as mere incubating machines," Manning wrote.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Forced birth is cruel and unusual punishment," she concluded.