It’s been about a month since the U.S. Supreme Court denied an emergency request to block a new Texas law that restricts access to abortions. The new law is extreme and cruel: It prohibits abortions after the first six weeks of a pregnancy — a time when most women don’t even know they are pregnant yet — and includes no exceptions for rape or incest. The law is enforced by private citizens, who have been deputized to report one another for violating the law, which includes those who provide or help someone access an abortion. Those who are reported violators can be sued for thousands of dollars.
So many people in our community, the state, and across the country are reeling after this horrifying development. It’s a huge step backward for a woman’s right to choose, and it allows others to decide what women can and can’t do with their own bodies. The law did not come out of thin air. Across this country, there is an organized effort to chip away at Roe v. Wade and our constitutional rights as women and as humans.
I have spent a lot of time lately thinking about this new law, my own life experiences and where we as a nation find ourselves today. I have had my own experiences with abortion. I was just an average woman whose birth control failed — twice — and it was not the right time in my life to have a child. Today I am able to run a thriving business, serve my community in the Legislature, and give back and contribute in so many ways. Had I not been able to make those choices for me, I know I would not be where I am today.
In the 1990s, I was a nurse providing abortion care services in New Jersey. I met countless women who were in the same position I had found myself in. Their birth control had failed after having consensual sex. I would remind them that having a choice is legal, it’s their body and their right. My role was to be kind and reassuring, to try and de-stigmatize the choice and to abolish the shame. Most women had tears. Most women left feeling relieved.
Today, I find myself in a much different role than I was in the ’90s. As a Maine State Senator, I may not be able to pass policies to protect the right to reproductive health care on the federal level, but I can work to ensure
that Maine women never, ever have to face the terrible decisions I know so many in Texas are having to do now on a daily basis. Last session, my Democratic colleagues and I fought to protect this right. We soundly rejected multiple bills that threatened access to reproductive health care in Maine.
Threats to a woman’s right to choose what is best for her own health and her own life are at stake, not just in Texas, but right here in Maine. We must stay vigilant, and we must ensure that the representatives we are electing are working to protect this constitutional right. Every state is one election away from the same reality as Texas.
As always, you can send me an email at Stacy.Brenner@legislature.maine.gov or call my office at 287-1515.
Stacy Brenner is serving her first term in the Maine Senate, representing Senate District 30, which includes Gorham, part of Buxton, and part of Scarborough. She is the co-owner of Broadturn Farm in Scarborough and is also a certified nurse-midwife.