By Katherine King, PhD, Pine Mountain Club and Venice
This OpEd by Katherine King is adapted from her open letter to our Mountain Community’s District 23 Congressmember Kevin McCarthy.

Dear Representative McCarthy:

Many of your District 23 constituents are alarmed by recent Supreme Court inaction on Texas’ efforts to limit a woman’s right to terminate a pre-viability pregnancy. If the U.S. Supreme Court overturns protections of Roe v. Wade for women, the U.S. Congress still has the power to bar states from turning women’s bodies into involuntary incubators.

Be True to Capitalist Values

If personal religious beliefs forbid you from supporting such legislation, I urge you and your fellow conservative Republicans to at least be true to your capitalist values.

Guided by the Fifth, Fourteenth and Thirteenth Amendments, you should pass a law ensuring that the expropriation of women’s bodies via eminent domain cannot happen “without just compensation.”

•The Fifth Amendment decrees that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

•The Fourteenth Amendment specifically applies these prohibitions to state governments, creating a constitutional right to “just compensation” for all acts of eminent domain.

•The Thirteenth Amendment forbids “involuntary servitude,” extending this right, in theory, to a person’s own body.

Therefore, if a federal or state government commandeers a person’s body “for public use,” its owner ought to receive “just compensation” under the principle of eminent domain.

Historically, when the government has commandeered bodies for what it defines as a higher purpose, it has used a law passed by Congress to do so, and it has paid compensation.

Conscripts Receive Pay

I refer to military conscription.

Today, according to federalpay.org, the lowest ranked enlisted soldier is paid $1,833 a month plus food, housing, free medical care, and inexpensive life insurance. Women forced to carry unwanted pregnancies should receive similar benefits.

Carrying a fetus to term can be painful, dangerous and financially stressful work. In addition to the final excruciating pain of labor and childbirth, pregnancy may cause fatigue, nausea (and edema) for months.

It can create life-threatening illness (hypertension, weakened heart muscle, hemorrhage, for example) that restricts daily activity.

Incest and Other Rapes

In the case of incest and other rapes, daily awareness of her rapist’s growing seed would likely cause profound anxiety and, for some, debilitating depression.

Such physical and psychological hardships impact a woman’s ability to earn a living.

There are some professions where safety issues alone could require a pregnant women to quit or take a leave of absence.

As published in an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit and in news accounts, pregnancy-related health issues can affect career prospects. Consider the case of Katia Hills, an Indiana salesperson who “felt sick nearly all the time,” had trouble sleeping and “developed cholestasis, a disabling liver condition.” These difficulties necessitated occasional lateness or absence, which caused Hills to be fired from the job she loved.

Risk of Death

Sometimes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, pregnancy can end in death to the mother.

That happened to 861 American women in 2020. The U.S. maternal mortality rate—death during or within 42 days of the end of pregnancy—is the highest of all developed countries, with 23.8 maternal deaths per 100,000 births. It is higher still for low income women, and 55.3 deaths per 100,000 for women of color. The mortality rate reaches 107.9 deaths per 100,000 births for women over 40 years of age.

Complications of pregnancy can have a lifelong impact on a woman’s physical and mental health. An unwilling mother who has been forced to allow a fetus to grow into a baby within her faces difficult choices: either rear it or give it up for adoption.

If post-viability bonding with the moving fetus compels her to keep it, the consequences for financial well-being to her and her family are serious.
If she chooses to give it up, she is subject to lifelong feelings of loss, guilt and worry over its wellbeing.

Placement in a nurturing home is not guaranteed. Data from the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute show there are 122,000 more children available than are adopted.

Pregnancy Is Not a Crime

In summary, getting pregnant is not a crime. Therefore the state has no right to condemn a pregnant woman to involuntary servitude. If, however, our government declares an overriding interest in preserving an embryo and assumes the right to deprive a woman of her control over whether she will risk her health, vomit for months and jeopardize her financial security in order to serve the state’s “higher purpose,” then it is our obligation to honor the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Provide Due Process

They decree that the government must provide a due process pathway for women to receive “just compensation.”

Every state that would conscript pregnant bodies for involuntary childbearing should be legally required to compensate affected women a minimum of $1,833 a month plus full health coverage and life insurance for the duration of that involuntary service.

Health coverage and financial support should continue if the unwanted pregnancy creates longterm complications.

Ethical conservative Republicans who cherish their own constitutional right to receive compensation for seized private property must also honor that same constitutional guarantee in their anti-abortion agenda.

They must recognize that the government seizure of a woman’s body to fulfill a goal of the state is eminent domain and subject to the rules of the U.S. Constitution.

Find hotlinks to research notes at www.MountainEnterprise.com

This is part of the April 8, 2022 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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