I cried for Texan women.

On Aug. 31, 2021, Texas became the first state to pass a law that can prevent abortions once medical professionals can detect cardiac activity, usually around six weeks, and allows any private citizen to sue abortion providers who violate the law, and anyone who aids a women in having an abortion. The law, rather than stopping women from having an abortion altogether, gives clinics an expensive reason not to provide abortions after six weeks: the prospect of being sued. Knowing women would now have to fear having an abortion made me cry.

This new law is destined to bring harm to many Texan women. Between creating an increase in illegal and unsafe abortions and an increase children needing to be adopted, it’s tough to see the true benefit in a law that disregards a woman’s right to her own body.

“She absolutely should be able to get one because that’s her medical right as a woman, and nobody else should be allowed to choose [for her],” sophomore Emma Hoen said.

Each woman should have the right to decide whether she should have a baby or not, whether that be through birth control or an abortion.

She has to figure out the logistics of birthing the baby and therefore seeing that it is cared for, whether that be adoption or to pay to raise it herself. There’s also the cost of giving birth. An abortion can cost anywhere between $75 and $2500, while going to a hospital and giving birth can cost anywhere between $5,000 – $11,000 in the U.S., according to Planned Parenthood, if there are no complications for mother or child. At a minimum, it will cost a woman double to birth the baby than to abort it.

And that isn’t to say everyone should have an abortion, because in the end it should be the woman’s choice. It would be unethical to force a woman abort her baby, so shouldn’t it be unethical to force a woman to birth her baby?

I’ll admit, there is a human being that will not be born when a woman has an abortion – that much is obvious. According to a Princeton study “When Do Human Beings Begin?” a female’s oocyte or “egg” with 23 chromosomes that goes through meiosis, better known as fertilization, with a male’s sperm with 23 chromosomes, creates a new human being with 46 chromosomes. Yet this new “human” begins as only a single-cell organism and will be dependent on the mother’s body to mature into a living human being after nine months of growth.

So a baby is a completely incapable organism that needs to live inside a host to survive. If a women decides that she does not want to have the baby that is surviving only by using her body, then she should be allowed to have a legal and safe abortion. Similarly, it is legal for people to give up their organs to each other, such as donating a kidney, but women cannot get rid of this part of their body. It’s hard to see the logic there.

“[Abortion] should definitely be a choice, because not every woman [can] raisie a child properly and care for the child,” Hoen said.

Raising a child is a feat that many people are not willing to take on, so thousands of children are sent to adoption centers every year. According to Adopt US Kids, “of the 400,000 children in foster care [in the United States], approximately 120,000 are waiting to be adopted.” Whether the children are in foster care due to abusive, incapable, or simply unwilling parents, these are children who are forced to live apart from their biological parents.

Many women have abortions when they do not want to go through the immense responsibility of childbirth just to put their child up for adoption. Women who have a baby, especially one they don’t want, have so many changes to go through: disruption to their livelihood, potentially losing a job, trauma of giving up their child, missing school, not graduating, and so many other effects on their daily lives.

It’s simply illogical and unjust to force that onto a woman for something she couldn’t necessarily choose.

This law does not make exceptions for cases of rape or incest either. Yet, saying that there should be an exception for only those cases is just as unfair because a woman should not need to be violated in order to have rights over her body. In other words, women should be allowed to have an abortion for any reason, and especially in cases of rape and incest.

Opponents argue that if a woman does not want to have a child, she should be on birth control. Yet, there is not a single type of female birth control that is 100% effective. Here’s how effective they actually are according to Planned Parenthood:

Male birth control such as a vasectomy (99% effective for life) and sterilization (99% effective for life) are also options, but just as female birth control, are not 100% effective. And, who’s to stop the man from lying about his own birth control just to have unprotected sex?

While birth control can significantly decrease the chances of an unwanted pregnancy, there is no current way other than abstinence to 100% prevent pregnancy. This being so, abortions seem logical in cases of an accident or just a baby that the mother may decide she no longer wants to birth and raise. So, hearing that the Texas government didn’t understand this logic sickened me.

Taking care of another human is an expensive feat, and to force a woman to make that choice only six weeks into a pregnancy – where chances are, she does not yet know she is pregnant – is simply illogical. There’s no baby bump, rarely any symptoms, and missing a menstrual cycle by a week or two is fairly common for many women on a regular basis. A woman simply can’t know at six week that’s she’s pregnant without spending money on a pregnancy test, which no one wants to continuously need to buy just to avoid having an abortion.

Knowing that you’re pregnant isn’t something most women can do until after six weeks, yet Texas citizens are allowed to prevent each other from having an abortion.

Health care, and therefore giving birth to a baby and ensuring it’s wellness, is a well known expense for many American citizens. To force them to go through the expense of having a baby and not having it paid for is unjust. Texan women can expect to spend a fortune on a baby they don’t want because their government said they don’t have a choice to an abortion after six weeks, and there isn’t much support from above.

“If the government isn’t gonna pay for health care, then they’re not allowed to limit [abortions],” senior Mason Levy said.

And, the even scarier part is anyone who tries to help a woman with having an abortion after six weeks can also be prosecuted by law, even down to the person who drives them there, whether that’s a loved one or Lyft or Uber driver. Therefore, women ridding themselves of a baby they don’t want are further alienated because no one wants to help them due to the fear of being punished themselves.

The fact is, the Texas government is now legally allowed to tell women what they can do with their bodies. And it’s frightening.

So I cried for Texan women. The news filled my stomach – a pit of dread. I wanted nothing more than to hug those women whose rights had been stolen. I knew what this meant. I knew the trends this would set. This law is paving the path for more violations of women’s rights.

This article is a part of Seckman’s “Hear Me Roar” column, which won First Place Column from CSMA.