On May 7, Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia signed the “heartbeat” law, preventing abortions as early as six weeks into a woman’s pregnancy. The bill prohibits an abortion once a heartbeat can be detected; however, doctors and reproductive right advocates argue that women are not even aware of their pregnancy until later than six weeks, making the bill nearly a complete ban on abortion. A penalty of up to ten years in prison is also included in the bill and will be enforced upon women who perform abortions.

Following Georgia, Alabama’s Gov. Kay Ivey signed the most restrictive abortion ban in the nation by making abortion a felony unless it harms the mother’s health. There are no exemptions for cases of rape or incest.

When news of the abortion bills reached social media, pandemonia erupted. Women collectively and publicly expressed their anger, stating that the bills dehumanizes women and strips away their bodily rights, which is a completely valid point.

Whenever the issue of  abortion is raised, there are typically two sides: pro-choice and pro-life. Pro-life forces a woman to keep her child, while pro-choice allows a woman to make a decision on whether she wants to keep her baby.

The title “pro-life” is contradictory itself. If pro-life claims to care about the baby, why is there no care for the mother? For rape victims. Why is there no sympathy for the women who have to live with the trauma? Why force a woman to have her rapist’s baby and be reminded of her experience every day? For women in general. Why force a woman to endure nine painful months of pregnancy for an unwanted child? Why does an embryo, zygote, or barely developed fetus have more rights than an actual human being?

“Don’t have sex if you’re not ready to have a baby.” Why is this said only to women and not to men? Men are able to go unpunished with their irresponsible decisions, yet women are taught to deal with the consequences.

“It’s against my religion.” America guarantees freedom of religion and separation of state and church. If one does not want an abortion, don’t get one. As the term implies, pro-choice allows one to make the decision on whether to get an abortion.  

“You can put the child up for adoption.” Adoption doesn’t erase the nine brutal months of pregnancy, nor does it help the 443,000 children already in foster care, according to childrensrights.org. On Twitter, user @Drebae_ also points out that the “government trying to ban abortions and make gay couples unable to adopt foster children” further fuels the question, “Who is going to take care of these unwanted kids y’all are trying to force folks to have?”

“What if the child grows up to cure cancer?” What if the mother, an actual functioning human being, grows up to cure cancer, but now she is unable to because she is forced to remove herself from receiving an education in order to raise a child she didn’t want in the first place?

Getting an abortion can penalize a woman up to 10 years in prison, 30 years for a miscarriage found guilty, and up to 99 years for the doctor who performs the procedure. Meanwhile, a rapist receives an average of 3-10 years. This means a woman will serve more time than her actual rapist. Erica Casillas (12) pinpoints the “trauma victims have to live with everyday.” It isn’t “fair for women to have to suffer more than they have to already.”

There are still human beings that do not have human rights. Women, minorities, the LGBTQ+ community, the disabled, and so much more, still do not have as much rights as a rich, straight, white man. It seems that pro-life ends when the baby leaves their mother’s womb.

At the end of the day, the anti-abortion movement is about dictating women’s bodies but painted out to be about saving lives. Men should not ever have the right to regulate or control women’s bodies, for they have never and will never experience the permanent setbacks women have to endure in society, proven again by these recent bills.