By Miya Cao, Staff Reporter

Dear lawmakers,

I would have assumed you had to pass a high school biology class to propose laws on abortion, but that does not appear to be the case.

In the 2019 debate in which Alabama’s senators first banned abortion, Sen. Clyde Chambliss casually dismissed the issue of separating miscarriage from abortion and could not define an “attempted abortion,” a part of the bill that carried penalty by up to 10 years in prison. He seemed unbothered and unconcerned by these gaps in his knowledge.

In 2016, Idaho’s then-Rep. Pete Nielsen said in an official hearing that he was, “of the understanding that in many cases of rape it does not involve any pregnancy because of the trauma of the incident,” and added, “that may be true with incest a little bit.”

Whatever Niselen is “of the understanding” of is a far cry from the realities of rape. If he genuinely cared about reproductive health and rights, he would have taken a second to crack open a basic biology textbook.

Can you think of any laws that control men’s bodies? Supreme Court Justice Brent Kavanaugh could not, stuttering when California’s then-Sen. Kamala Harris asked him that very question during his 2018 confirmation hearing. If the government passed laws on men’s bodies, would it let a woman that was uneducated on male anatomy make the legislation? Absolutely not. The hypocrisy is evident.

One of the largest controversies with abortion bills by doctors is that the bills do not include exceptions past common miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies. To ensure the safety of patients and protect doctors, bills about health issues should have input from medical professionals. Pregnancies can be extremely complicated, and leaving abortions up to lawmakers leaves doctors liable.

The true root of the problem is America’s appalling lack of proper sex education.  If my eighth grade classmates could handle watching a video of a woman giving birth, a grown man with children of his own can too. Lawmakers like you have undergone extensive schooling, but many do not understand the basics of pregnancy, even without the controversies of conception or viability.

You love to talk about medically questionable fetal milestones and the sanctity of motherhood and life, but when it comes to the biology of the issue, you shy away. You do not need a female reproductive system to understand how it works, especially when an entire sex’s autonomy is at stake. No matter your stance on abortion, knowing the facts should be a requirement to enact legislation on such vulnerable matter.

Sincerely,

A concerned, young woman

Miya Cao can be reached at [email protected].