Local opinion: The fight for abortion is about so much more

Abortion is healthcare, and it is a right that every pregnant person deserves. I have always been outspoken in favor of codifying abortion. As the Arizona Supreme Court holds our reproductive freedom in their hands, it is worth reminding ourselves that this is about so much more than abortion.

I have recently found myself looking at the issue with a new and different lens. Last week I had a hysterectomy. I’m 51, it happens. This was a medical decision I made freely with my doctor. There are many reasons that I chose a hysterectomy, none were controversial. I wasn’t on the news. I didn’t have to have the court decide for me. I did speak to my husband about it, but I didn’t need his permission.

But for how long?

If we don’t fight and win the right to abortion, what right to our own bodies will be taken next? Birth control? IVF? Surrogacy? Tubal Ligation? Hysterectomy? Hormone Replacement Therapy? Maybe. The fall of Roe v. Wade has put every aspect of reproductive healthcare on the table. It was never about life, always about control. The far right is fighting so that the pregnant person is legally unable to make a medical decision for themselves. As we have seen this week a court’s overruling a medically necessary abortion and rising prosecutions for miscarriages, in some states the fetus has more rights than the person who is carrying it.

So, while I’ve been recovering from a hysterectomy, I have been thinking about how I was able to make this medical decision and move forward with treatment. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly. I was in daily pain, anemic from 21-day cycles for 18 months, and had uterine fibroids that caused discomfort and pain. Those are all great reasons to have a hysterectomy. But will others be able to choose for themselves in the future? Technically, I was still able to carry a child. So, in a future without abortion, without birth control, without sex education to teach young people about sexual health, will there also be no hysterectomies without a court’s decision? Will a 51-year-old woman with the above issues need a court to decide if she is truly done bearing children? Will hysterectomy only be approved if the patient has cancer? Will strangers get to decide how much pain is too much pain? Will physicians be hesitant to perform the surgery because they might be prosecuted and go to jail? Because that is where we are right now with abortion.

There are so many reasons why this fight is so very important. Abortion is just the first step in the process of taking away more of our rights to decide what we do with our own bodies. Abortion is healthcare. Abortion should be codified in our Arizona Constitution and the United States Constitution. And strangers should stay the hell out of my private medical decisions.