Nancy Davis wanted the baby she was expecting. Then she discovered her baby would either die in her womb or die soon after birth because the fetus didn’t have a skull. She decided to abort but, unfortunately she lives in Louisiana which restricts abortion access. Because the law was vaguely written, the doctors at her hospital were confused whether an abortion would be legal in this case. The hospital opted to tell Davis she needed to go to another state where the procedure was legal.

A 16 year girl in Florida wants to get an abortion so she can continue her education. Since she is 16 and parentless, she had to go to the Florida courts to determine whether she could. The judge decided against her — saying she was too immature to make such a decision. Yes. You heard it right. The girl is too immature to make a decision to abort but is mature enough to take over full time care of a baby.

This is a horror story for a variety of reasons.

1. The woman’s choice is overruled by lawyers and judges. The court can make a decision that ignores her wishes completely.
2. Doctors aren’t going to risk their careers by breaking the law. If they are afraid to act, they won’t. This could create a deadly medical crisis for the woman in an emergency situation.
3. The law creates needless delays in treatment while a lawyer or a judge is consulted. This is especially important in states where there are more stringent time restrictions for abortions. The clock is ticking on her access and any delay could cause her to miss this deadline.
4. Poor women are in a particular bind. They may not have access to lawyers and may have trouble coming up for both an abortion and the travel to Pro-choice state. She will have fairly grim choices — waiting for the fetus dies in her or to be born dead, get an illegal abortion or spend money she doesn’t have to travel to a state where she can get an abortion.
5. The ability to travel to Pro-choice states makes abortion restrictions meaningless. All that you are doing is making abortion inconvenient for those who can afford to travel.
6. The state is making an already difficult circumstance even worse for the woman. Instead of getting the abortion where she lives, working with the medical professionals she is familiar with, and going to back to her home after the procedure, she has to figure out where abortion is legal, find a doctor to perform the abortion, travel hundreds of miles away from home to get it. All this additional stress just so the state doesn’t have the abortion performed within its boundaries.

Who actually benefits from any of this? Certainly not the pregnant woman. The state has taken away her power of choice so that the state can act as if they are morally superior to the mother. In the meantime, most women will slip off to another state, or obtain an illegal abortion, or quietly slip into poverty with a child now in tow.

What a mess.