Now They Want To Charge Women With Killing Their 'Preborn' Babies

Republicans are salivating with the prospect of charging women who get abortions with murder, jailing them for life and even sentencing them to death

Photo by Manny Becerra on Unsplash

If you thought that Republican lawmakers in Red states like Texas, Idaho, South Carolina and Georgia would be thrilled that they have outlawed physicians from providing abortions in their states, then think again.

They’re not thrilled enough.

Republican legislators don’t care that pregnant women are dying at soaring rates during pregnancy, childbirth and post pregnancy in their states ever since they enacted extreme abortion bans.

But now they’d like to kill more women.

Or at the very least, lock them up for life.

The bills that they are introducing this year in at least 10 Red state Senates and Houses, give the same rights to life and liberty to ‘preborn’ or’ unborn’ fertilized eggs and fetuses, as have been given to their mothers.

Just read the language in the newly introduced Texas House Bill 2197 and it’s chilling - at least it has to be chilling if you are a woman living in that state. Here are the key passages:

‘BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS: SECTIONA1.AA Acknowledging the sanctity of innocent human life created in the image of God, the purposes of this Act are to: (1)AAfollow the United States Constitution, which provides that "[n]o State shall .A.A. deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"; (2)AAprotect the lives of preborn children with the same criminal and civil laws protecting the lives of human beings born alive by repealing laws that permit wilful prenatal homicide and assault;’

AND (4)AAsecure the right to life and equal protection of the laws for all preborn children from the moment of fertilization ‘

In other words - women who get pregnant in Texas and in the other Republican -dominated states that have introduced similar Bills so far this year - and it’s only April - might as well be Noomi Rapace, a scientist in space in the 2012 thriller, Prometheus, who discovers that she has a terrifying alien octupus-looking thing growing in her uterus.

It’s her versus the alien.

She and the alien each obviously believe that they have a full right to keep living in the same body - at least until the alien is ready to birth itself or rather burst itself out of Rapace’s body.

Rapace’s character knows that if she doesn’t abort the alien, she has no chance of survival.

REPUBLICANS ARE PITTING PREGNANT WOMEN AGAINST THEIR FETUSES

Now, here, in the real world, Republicans want to legally pit fertilized eggs against the women that carry them EVEN if the fetus, could kill them.

In other words Republicans are determined to establish that a pregnant woman and her fertilized egg are sharing the same body with equal legal rights.

Does that feel as creepy to you as it does to me, even if you love babies and children?

Only when a woman’s death is imminent or she is at risk of losing a major bodily organ, are doctors legally allowed to chose to save the life of the mother instead of that of the fetus.

No wonder OBGYNs in these states have told me that they have patients who are now too afraid to have any kids at all since they have no right of control over their own bodies.

Now ever since Roe V Wade was overturned in June 2022 by the Supreme Court and Republican - dominated states gleefully started passing extreme abortion bans with no exceptions for rape or incest lawmakers in those states have insisted that they wouldn’t punishing pregnant women for getting abortions.

Instead, they targeted all medical providers who might provide the procedure - terrorizing them with threats of jail sentences of up to 99 years if they performed an abortion before a woman was at serious risk of dying.

Republicans even had the nerve to claim that they were “protecting women” from predatory doctors, or clinics or partners pressuring innocent women into having abortions that they really didn’t want.

ANTI ABORTIONISTS WANT WOMEN LOCKED UP OR EXECUTED

But now in 2025, less than 3 years later, the gloves are off. Zealous anti abortion legislators aren’t satisfied with merely controlling women in their states, they are excited to do what they no doubt have wanted to do all along - punish them.

And Harshly. They plan to charge them with homicide if they take abortion pills or somehow are able to get a surgical abortion that didn’t meet the necessary legal requirements in their states.

Several of these states punish homicides with the death penalty!

The Foundation To Abolish Abortion celebrates Texas Bill 2197 as a ‘deterrent’ that prohibits everyone, including pregnant mothers, from engaging in the unlawful act of prenatal homicide.

That’s a new term for you to get your minds around: ‘prenatal homicide.’

Are we looking at a future in which Law & Order will be doing episodes with Olivia Benson investigating cases of ‘prenatal homicide’?

As insane as it sounds, Republican lawmakers are deadly serious about trying to pass these laws. Idaho Senator Brandon Shippy, who introduced a Bill in February in the state legislature, would define life in Idaho beginning from the moment of conception so “it would give embryos and fetuses the same legal defenses and protections “as would apply to the homicide of a human being who had been born alive”.

Shippy announced that he was “ensuring justice for preborn children”.

His Bill would also authorize law enforcement to investigate women who have had a miscarriage if there was any ‘suspicion’ that they actually has an abortion.

Considering that 10-20% of all pregnancies end in a natural miscarriage, law enforcement in Idaho sure will be busy investigating the women of childbearing age in their states.

Then there’s a whole other issue to contend with if Republican legislators get their way in passing any legal ‘personhood’ laws protecting unborn or preborn fetuses.

Aside from the laws that make women who get abortions, criminals, facing life in prison or even the death penalty, they also mean the end of IVF in these states.

In Montana, Montana House Rep. Lee Deming has introduced a fetal personhood bill, even though voters just passed a constitutional amendment enshrining the right to an abortion.

These zealots just don’t give up.

And they have equally determined supporters who don’t care one bit if women suffering from infertility will never have a chance to have children of their own.

Montana doctor Dr. Annie Bukacek insisted to the Idaho legislature that“IVF is where untold human lives are destroyed to bring about one life, with enormous cash profits for individual clinics.”

So readers, I’ve warned you here. The onslaught against women will get even nastier this year. If they are pregnant and get an abortion, they could be arrested for ‘prenatal homicide’.

But if they need to turn to IVF to have a family, they’ll be out of luck if their state passed a fetal personhood law. Hey, you remember that the Alabama Supreme Court ruled last year that unborn embryos are entitled to the same legal protections as living children.

IVF COULD BE BANNED

That meant that Alabama IVF clinics were forced to close for several weeks, leaving dozens of heartbroken women who had been undergoing treatment.

Right now, none of the Republican bills that would turn women who get abortions into criminals have become law yet but I’m not ready to relax on this front.

Remember, when Roe first fell and we never thought there was any way that states would pass abortion laws with no exceptions for rape and incest.

But they did.

Then, we couldn’t imagine that doctors would actually let women die who needed miscarriage or incomplete abortion treatment - but they did.

And whoever heard of the Comstock Act of 1973 a couple of years ago, but now we know that it’s cited enthusiastically in Donald Trump’s Project 2025 way as a way to end abortion nationally without having Congress pass a national abortion ban.

Trump is following Project 2025 to a tee so there’s no way we should be surprised if his loyal MAGA Attorney General, Pam Bondi, starts enforcing it to prevent abortion medication and surgical tools from crossing state lines.

I’m reminding you of all this to point out that what we used to think was crazy has become our reality.

That’s why, I’m taking these bills in ten Red states so far, very seriously.

And Republican state Attorney Generals have been rabid about enforcing their anti abortion laws.

Lauren Miller, a mom of two young sons in Texas, sued the state along with 19 other women, hoping to clarify exceptions to the state’s abortion ban.

She was forced to flee Texas when she was pregnant with twins and learned that one of her much-wanted babies had a fatal condition and if he wasn’t aborted he would cause his healthy brother to die as well.

She flew to Colorado to have a selective reduction in order to save her healthy son.

Miller is convinced that Texas Republican lawmakers are itching to charge and punish women who get abortions. She told me “I am confident they would prosecute women. They are looking for ways to prosecute us.”

Yup.

I’m sure many of you marched in one of the 1300 “HandsOff” protests across the country on April 5th , like I did.

Thank you all so much. Now, please keep your fighting energy up . We may be battling this year against the cruelest anti abortion laws yet.

HANDSOFF Our Bodies!

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