Letter: Pregnant women are not public property

Gabriela Cano submitted the following letter to the editor with the Tulsa World.
See it here.

In 2021, we again face an onslaught of profoundly cruel and disturbing bills seeking to inflict trauma on Oklahomans capable of pregnancy.

Those bills include criminalizing all abortion, no rape exceptions; outlining that even suicidal pregnant people can’t access abortion; seeking to persecute people for the “crime” of controlling their own bodies; stating pregnant people are, in Sen. Justin Humphrey’s words, just “hosts.”

With bills like Senate Bill 495 and Senate Bill 612, lawmakers spit in the face of Oklahomans capable of pregnancy.

These bills treat pregnant bodies like public property.

Sen. Warren Hamilton said, "We shouldn’t kill babies because their location is inconvenient,” forgetting to mention the location is the body of an autonomous being.

People forced to carry unwanted pregnancies face five times greater risk of developing depression; three times greater risk of self-harming behaviors, including suicidality; 14 times greater likelihood of dying during childbirth; four times the odds of living in poverty; and a much greater chance of being unable to escape domestic violence.

To Oklahoma lawmakers, pregnant people don’t matter.

To them, what matters is eradicating health care for Oklahomans, even amid a deadly pandemic.

To them, what matters is forcing Oklahomans into pregnancy and birth against their will while Oklahoma consistently ranks among the worst states for child abuse, poverty, lack of health care access and deadly domestic violence.

We won’t remain desensitized to this cruelty.

We’re not “hosts” or “inconvenient locations.”

We’re fully autonomous beings, with the right to make decisions about our own health, bodies and futures.