Last week, the North Dakota GOP signed into law SB2150, a near-total abortion ban, with exceptions only for those who can prove their pregnancies are the result of rape or incest in the first six weeks of gestation, and to "prevent the death or a serious health risk" of a pregnant patient (to which the six-week limit does not apply). What lawmakers call "six weeks pregnant" is about one week after someone might first know they were pregnant, if they had very regular periods they were tracking religiously — uncommon, among the incredibly busy and stressed-out mothers who make up the majority of U.S. abortion patients. North Dakota Republicans are celebrating. The party's enthusiastic celebration of this deadly ban has brought some particularly telling language forth from the mouths of its endorsers.
"We talk about rape and incest, and those are horrific circumstances," said Republican State Sen. Janne Myrdal, of Edinburg, North Dakota, speaking in April in support of the bill on the state senate floor. "We certainly want to encourage any child, any woman, that experiences any of this, to immediately go to medical care and get these things taken care of before there's fertilization."
Whenever a new state-level abortion ban passes, I search for the quotes given to journalists or the official testimony shared by the anti-abortion lawmakers who voted for it. Who are these lawmakers claiming to privilege and protect, with this new authority they are granting themselves over our bodies and our families? They are usually explicit about this: "the unborn," or other euphemisms for any fertilized eggs, embryos or fetuses which might exist inside the bodies of their pregnant constituents. And with whose lives, families and freedoms are they willing to pay for this new privileged class? That's easy: They will always be willing to sacrifice the health, safety, freedom and wellbeing of these same constituents — no matter their individual wishes, their medical needs, their ages or their circumstances.
I read Myrdal's quote and was struck by both the transparency and the specificity of it. North Dakota's Republican party "certainly" wants to "encourage" a child who has been raped, by a family member or otherwise, to "immediately go to medical care" and "get these things taken care of before there's fertilization."
Perhaps this senator's bizarre and frankly fantastical vision shouldn't shock me. Destini Spaeth of Fargo, board director of the state's only abortion fund, the ND WIN Fund, tells me Myrdal has long proclaimed her desire to pass an SB8 "copycat bill," replicating Texas' ban on almost all abortions where fetal cardiac activity is detected and its employment of a bounty hunter enforcement mechanism in which its residents can file civil suits against anyone suspected of "aiding and abetting" the termination of such a pregnancy.
In Spaeth's tenure with the fund — which offsets or covers the costs of travel, birth control and abortion-related expenses for callers from North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota and other states — she has spent countless hours, days and weeks supporting the thousands of very real children and women Myrdal references in her statement celebrating the law that will restrict their bodily autonomy.
Spaeth was struck by both the impossibility and the inhumanity of the state senator's directive.
"Fully funding callers who need abortion care after experiencing an act of sexual violence is one small act of compassion that the ND WIN Fund can offer," said Spaeth.
Unlike in the inhumane dystopia that Myrdal and her colleagues have designed and created for their constituents, in the days following a rape, the fund does not demand that a North Dakotan, child or adult, earn care or resources or prove the extent of their suffering or injury. It's a cruelty and a disconnect Spaeth can't even imagine.
"We would never ask a caller to subject themselves to medical care … [especially care that they] could not access."
Let's walk through the fairy tale that Senator Myrdal spun for us in last Monday's statement, laying out her grand plan for controlling North Dakotans' reproductive lives and decisions, from their very first period to their last.
Entire families will suffer incalculable physical and emotional traumas, will feel the financial devastation for decades and generations to come.
According to Senator Myrdal, in this statement, a child living in her state — maybe a neighbor of hers, a relative or member of her community, a child she sees at church every week or who has played with one of her own children — is raped by a parent or guardian, resulting in a pregnancy.
In the immediate aftermath of this act of sexual and physical violence — which may very well just be one more day in a life of chronic abuse for them, the traumatized child is of a clear and calm enough mind, well-versed enough in reproductive biology, and sufficiently in touch with their small body, to consider that they may be pregnant.
The child Myrdal imagines here somehow knows about the artificial and legally-imposed timeline in which they are allowed to "take care of these things," and then, as Senator Myrdal directs them, they "go to medical care" within a week of a period they may not even know they have missed. Then this child, knowing exactly what abortion is, and possessing a wallet full of money and an understanding of the health care system — as all children do — then acquires official, documented proof of rape or incest in order to schedule an abortion for the very next day, because in 27 or 26 or 25 hours, this will no longer be legally possible.
Perhaps the parent who raped them drives this child, in Senator Myrdal's imagination, to this place where doctors and practitioners are being threatened with felony prosecution for providing this care outside of the very narrow legally defined bounds the state now allows — if they can even "get these things taken care of" locally. It's more likely they will have to drive over the border to Minnesota, as there is not a single abortion clinic left in the state.
After this child — whose rapist not only supports and protects their safety and well-being but also has the gas money, childcare, time off work and other resources to make this incredibly burdensome "taking care of these things" (abortion) possible — is no longer pregnant, they return to school, unharmed by this bill designed specifically to harm them.
Or maybe Senator Myrdal, like all the others who passed this ban, and like the governor who signed it into law, knows that none of that will happen.
Maybe they understand that children, teenagers, incest and rape survivors will be forced to continue pregnancies and give birth against their will, and patients experiencing life-threatening conditions will not get the timely care they need. These North Dakotans could have lived long and healthy lives and built thriving families or careers, if only they had access to the health care they needed and the bodily autonomy that rightfully belonged to them. Entire families will suffer incalculable physical and emotional traumas, will feel the financial devastation for decades and generations to come.
Maybe they know that for many of these North Dakotans — some of whom are not born yet, themselves, but who will be born into unsurvivable conditions and circumstances, or will go on to someday experience one or more of the state's thousands of annual unintended pregnancies — an abortion ban is a death sentence.
Maybe Senator Myrdal knows all of this. I find it likely she does, to be frank. Her "encouragement" of what is plainly impossible for most of her constituents, children and otherwise, implies she simply doesn't care.
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