Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

My Point of View By Jennifer Vogt-Erickson

The number of young women registering to vote after the Dobbs decision this past summer will change the outcomes of elections across the United States in November. Here is a small sample of the nightmares already unfolding in the aftermath of Dobbs:

• A Louisiana woman is being forced to carry a fetus with a fatal diagnosis of acrania (no skull) for the next 6 months or she has to travel far out of state to get an abortion. All three abortion clinics that had recently been operating in Louisiana have confirmed they are leaving the state.
• A 10-year-old rape victim was forced to travel to Indiana for an abortion after being denied abortion care in her home state of Ohio. Prominent Republicans at first denied the story until a local reporter covering the courtroom beat in Columbus found the perpetrator at a hearing and matched the details. 
• A Wisconsin woman who miscarried a wanted pregnancy was refused a D&C procedure at a hospital and was forced to bleed intermittently for 10 days before she found a doctor who would give her a medication abortion to expel the dead fetus. She was needlessly put at risk of hemorrhage or infection, which is potentially life threatening, because Wisconsin’s 173-year-old abortion ban is now back in effect.

Michigan gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon recently stated that “something we don’t think about“ is how a 14-year-old rape victim could experience a “healing” process through the bond the girl makes with her baby, and that is why she would support forcing that girl to give birth.

It should go without saying that choosing to have a baby under those circumstances is not the same as being forced to carry a rapist’s baby.

Minnesota State Rep. Tony Albright resigned from his seat due to backlash last month after he said on a podcast that he thought a 10-year-old rape victim should be forced to carry her pregnancy to term.

Rep. Peggy Bennett and Sen. Gene Dornink have virtually the same position. They have both co-sponsored abortion bans for women, with exceptions only for saving the mother’s life. They both consistently center the fetus, in which case the mother’s age is largely irrelevant.

Bennett recently stated in the Steele County Times, “How could I look into the eyes of my young first-graders and wonder which of them would choose not to be here? All would choose life! I don’t want to see any baby aborted.”

It’s not clear that Bennett has ever considered how many of her students may exist because their mothers had previous abortions when they weren’t ready to be mothers, underwent grueling fertility treatments or made other reproductive decisions that she may or may not agree with. Bennett seems to have an abstract and simplistic — rather than empathetic and nuanced — concept of what pregnancy and motherhood mean for women.

Mary Hinnenkamp, the DFL candidate for House 23A, has experienced pregnancy, motherhood, adopting a child, being a working mother, lining up child care and working professionally with pregnant students and young mothers. She has an exceptionally grounded understanding of what girls and women go through. Hinnenkamp trusts women to make their own decisions for themselves and their families.

Bennett does have experience with adoption, I suppose, as a designer dog mom. This is a quite limited scope for wanting to insert government control into women’s complex family planning decisions.

Gene Dornink responded to the Steele County Times, “Many things change when you have your first child. It didn’t look like a choice, but rather an innocent life that deserved protection.” Due in part to his extreme religious beliefs, Dornink has 12 biological children. People can have as many children as they want, of course. I note his choice because he also wants to insert government control into other people’s personal family planning decisions.

I would never trust Dornink to protect women’s access to contraception either, given that he seeks to impose his religious beliefs about life beginning at conception on others, and it’s possible that our off-the-rails Supreme Court could overturn Griswold in the near future.

Brandon Lawhead, DFL candidate for Senate 23, thinks women are fully capable of making their own reproductive choices.

The DFL trusts women. Whether it’s old-timey patriarchal beliefs or just a pro-profit bearing to force the low wage workforce to reproduce itself, the GOP does not.

Hell hath no fury like women who are treated like glorified farm animals by out-of-touch paternalistic Republican politicians who want to deny them essential reproductive care. Vote for Hinnenkamp and Lawhead. Vote DFL.

Jennifer Vogt-Erickson is a member of the Freeborn County DFL Party.