Florida Women Lost Their Reproductive Freedom for What?

I am not a physician but my understanding is that that doctors count the age of a pregnancy from the first day of a woman’s last period. Strictly speaking, this is very likely to be inaccurate. Women don’t get pregnant while they are menstruating. The British National Health Service says the typical menstrual cycle is 28 days long, and women are generally fertile 10 to 16 days before their next period. Another way of saying this is that a pregnancy is most likely to commence between day 12 and 18 of the cycle. That means that by the time a woman misses her period, she has already been pregnant, on average, about 12 to 18 days. But how quickly can we reasonably expect them to realize that they’re pregnant.

It’s possible for a test to detect a pregnancy 1-2 weeks after intercourse, but sperm can survive in the Fallopian tubes for up to a week, so fertilization can be delayed. The tests are typically looking for a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin that is associated with pregnancy, and it takes time for HCG to reach a detectable level in the body, which is why testing too early can lead to a false negative. The truth is, a six-week abortion ban gives a woman, on average, 1-2 weeks to make a decision and then have the procedure. And that assumes she realizes she’s pregnant at near the earliest possible moment. That’s a rare occurrence even among vigilant women with very regular cycles. In many cases, the six-week window will already have passed.

But that didn’t deter Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis from signing a 6-week ban into law this week. This is a follow-up to a 15-week ban he signed last year. It turns out that 15 weeks is about as good as Southern woman is going to find, and Florida became a destination spot for those seeking abortions. That’s not a record DeSantis wants to run on as a presidential candidate in the Republican primaries.

“The numbers show that Florida is a destination” for abortion, said Chad Davis, a candidate for the state House who worked for ex-state senator Kelli Stargel, the sponsor of the 15-week ban. “That’s an embarrassment to him.” …

“Abortion is not an issue that motivates him, I can tell you that,” said the person in DeSantis’s orbit with knowledge of the situation. “But it’s one of those … what choice do you have here?”

So, even though DeSantis has demonstrated a “longtime reluctance to make abortion a signature part of his public profile” and friends say “He doesn’t want to talk a lot about it” and avoids “the a-word,” he felt he no choice but to implement a 6-week ban. Floridian women will suffer the consequences for what amounts to a cynical political calculation, and one for which DeSantis has no passion. In truth, he knows it’s bad general election politics which is why he made no fanfare of signing the bill and didn’t even mention it the next day during a speech at conservative Christian Liberty University in Virginia.

He want’s defuse the issue in the primaries without letting it define him in a contest against President Joe Biden.

I, for one, am not going to let him do this so easily. I hope women share articles like this far and wide, because everyone should see through this cynicism and note the cruel indifference of DeSantis for what it is.

Here’s who he’s trying to mollify by stripping women of their reproductive choice:

Tom Ascol — a Florida pastor chosen to deliver prayers at a DeSantis reelection rally and, earlier this year, DeSantis’s inauguration — said the six-week ban “may get us three or four yards further down field, but it’s not anywhere near the goal line.”

A runner-up to lead the Southern Baptist Convention, he has said he believes women who get abortions at any stage of pregnancy should face homicide charges — an idea vehemently rejected by most antiabortion advocates.

As you can see, he didn’t even succeed in satisfying these lunatics. But the harm is done.