‘Conception begins at erection’ and other abortion laws in America

The case came about after Norma McCorvey, a 25 year old woman under the pseudonym of Jane Roe, argued that abortion laws in Texas and Georgia infringed upon a woman’s right to privacy.

McCorvey brought the case to court after having been forced to give birth to her third child which she said had been conceived through rape.

Several years later, in 1992, there was another case which attempted to challenge the 1982 Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act.

This act demanded that married women notify their husbands of their intention to seek an abortion, that women under 18 obtain parental permission, and that at least 24 hours elapsed between the initial consultation and the procedure. Although Roe was preserved, the state still voted to tighten regulations on abortion.

Later, in 2022 the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organisation reassigned the power of individuals’ reproductive health to individual states in America.

Having sued the state of Mississippi in 2018 over the constitutionality of the Gestational Age Act, which banned abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, Jackson’s Women’s Health Organisation endured an ongoing battle with the state until a bunch of cis-men in government won the case to make the decision about reproductive systems they don’t possess.

Known as a trigger law, this meant that individual states could regulate – or ban all together – the right to abortion. Many will remember the exclusively male image that circulated after this decision was made.

As a result, many predominantly republican states have gone ahead to impose greater restrictions – or an all out ban – on access to abortion.

The Hyde Amendment, renewed each year since it was introduced by the Republican Henry Hyde in 1976, also continues to prohibit federal funding for abortion.

Today, Mississippi is one of the US states with the most severe, and most devastatingly restrictive laws criminalising abortion all together.

According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, other states who have enforced this illegal status include Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Oklahoma and South Dakota. States such as Nebraska, Utah, Georgia, and South Carolina have also imposed hostile restrictions such as six or 12 week bans on abortion.

This has in turn created even more a public health crisis in the alleged “land of the free” as, like the Académie’s Française’s attempt to eliminate anglicisms in public usage, people’s need for abortions hasn’t diminished just because they’ve been essentially outlawed.

In 2023 the Monthly Abortion Provision Study estimated that 1,037,000 abortions had still occurred in the formal health care system.

In the same year physicians warned that people in underserved medical communities in states that ban abortions may be more likely to attempt a self-managed [abortion] “by ingestion of toxic substances or by self-inflicted physical injury.”

Since the increased state restrictions the new ruling has also seen more people travel further to cross state lines to where they can legally access abortions.

It’s also estimated that the consequences of abortion bans is mostly likely to affect marginalised communities who have less access to safe medical care or the ability to travel to somewhere with safe and legal abortion access.

Today, Mississippi is one of the US states with the most severe, and most devastatingly restrictive laws against access to abortion.

This includes an absolute ban on abortion in all cases except where the child bearer’s life is in danger or the pregnancy is a result of a rape that’s been previously reported to law enforcement.

In response, Bradford Blackmon, a democratic Mississippi state Senator, has introduced a legislation which is being referred to as the “Conception Begins at Erection” bill, a play on the pro-life slogan “life begins at conception”.

This bill would make it unlawful for “a person to discharge genetic material without the intent to fertilise an embryo”, with incremental fines for masturbation.

It’s been suggested that this bill is intended satirically and it’s unlikely that it would actually stand up in court. However, in conceiving of this ruling, Blackmon told WBLT3 that this bill highlights that the vast majority of bills relating to contraception and/or abortion focus on the woman’s role when men are fifty percent of the equation.”

He added, “People can get up in arms and call it absurd but I can’t say that bothers me.”

As each of Trump’s executive orders continues to make ever more precarious the existence of vulnerable individuals and communities in the US, perhaps bills like Blackmon’s can be something to get us all a little excited.

It reminds us that for every blow to democracy and humanitarian rights, there is a wave of resistance and support for those affected by an increasingly dystopian, draconian and fascist government.

 

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It’s also important to remember that whilst states like Texas and Mississippi have rushed to impose these new laws, many democratic states such as California, New York, and Washington have introduced stronger legal protections for abortion in response by introducing “Expanded Access”.

This means that the right to abortion is protected by state statutes or constitutions and in some cases include additional access to abortion care.

Here’s a list of resources and/or places to donate and/or learn more:

• Project Oyez Body Politic
• Reproductive Freedom for all
• Advocacy for Youth
• National Abortion Federation
• Center for Reproductive Rights
• National Network of Abortion Funds
• I need an A (abortion clinic options for every state)