In recent news, Texas passed a law that would criminalize abortions performed after 6 weeks. Most women don’t even know they’re pregnant before 6 weeks, meaning they would not have time to obtain healthcare. To be blunt, this law is both wrong and dangerous.This law does not eliminate all abortions; it only eliminates safe abortions. Nowadays, medication is more often used to perform abortions than medical procedures.

This law would send women fleeing to other states in order to receive the care they need. On top of that, Texas is trying to extend the law to arrest women who leave the state to receive an abortion. It’s like they can’t be safe anywhere. A major issue in this law, additionally, is that abortions are not only an option for ending pregnancy for those who have suffered sexual assault, abuse or similar crimes. There are also pregnancies that could pose a danger for both the baby and the mother. There are ectopic pregnancies, pregnancies that could result in either the baby, the mother or both dying, and cases of a mother carrying too many babies for all of them to survive. There are endless possibilities of what could happen that might require an abortion. Even worse, people are asking for women that receive abortions and the doctors that perform them to receive the death penalty as punishment.This would mean that aborting unborn fetuses was illegal, but killing the mother and doctor for doing it wasn’t. This just seems crooked. However, the biggest issue I have is that many (not all, to emphasize, but many) people that call themselves pro-life are not truly pro-life. They tend to be pro-birth, which isn’t inherently wrong, but it can be when there are many more issues regarding children that can be resolved.

There are millions of children that are in orphanages and foster care systems that could go to loving homes, as well as children from suffering countries that are able to have a second chance at a happy life, but they probably won’t because, according to a tweet I recently read, “Being pro-life has nothing to do with after birth care.” This was in response to a statement saying that there are nearly 30,000 children in Texas in foster care and an additional 3,378 children waiting for adoptive families.The mere response made my blood boil because it shows that once the child is out of the womb, they don’t matter to pro-lifers anymore.Even today, women still don’t have autonomy when it comes to their bodies and having babies. A recent story emerged of a woman who wanted to have a hysterectomy because she and her husband chose not to have children, but the doctor told her she needed her husband’s permission. However, when the husband wanted to receive a vasectomy, he didn’t need his wife’s permission. Although we live in the present, we’re still stuck in the past. Overall, the Texas abortion law is harmful, wrong and disrespectful to women everywhere. It’s proof that women can’t fend for themselves and can’t make choices about their own body. Texas, as well as the United States, needs to do better.