The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
I’m imagining the possibility that the consequence of this upcoming election will be the banning of abortion under state and federal law. Here’s a scenario I foresee, looking back from 2025:
Trump and the right return to rule in 2024. Within months abortion is banned nationwide and by 2025 a desperate 16-year-old is getting her malformed stillborn fetus extracted on an Arizona back road by an abortionist just as a multi-governmental SWAT team raids the RV. She loses consciousness in the chaos. That same morning, Gov. Lake, a national star and Trump’s clear successor, signs an abortion bill granting judges wider discretion in sentencing.
The 16-year-old wakes up in a dark hospital room crowded with doctors and nurses, cuffed to a gurney. She recognizes her mom’s voice among the many voices through a painkiller haze.
People are also reading…
People with badges, names and questions arrive. A badge sets his pocket recorder down next to her untouched cup of ice chips. “We’d like to ask you some questions.”
She has the right to remain 16 and frightened. She has the right to an attorney when all she wants is the right to go home and cry for years. She has the right to recognize her life is over. And that anything she says will not save her from the facts.
“Well, who do we have here?” Badge One opens a folder. ”Our records show when Roe fell your mom joined the pro-choice protestors marching in front of the courthouse downtown. You carried a sign. ‘My body. My choice .’
“Well, miss, we beg to differ. It’s not a choice, it’s a life. We flagged you because of your online searches. Our tactical unit found you too late. Are you aware aborting a human being is a federal crime as well as a violation of state law?”
Her mother pleads. “Can’t this wait?”
“Get your hands off me!”
“We are conducting a criminal investigation, ma’am. “
“Miss, are you aware illegal abortifacients were found on your person?”
Miss focuses on her defiant mother’s reassuring eyes.
“Miss, you are facing multiple felony charges. Count one. Premeditated willful deliberate abortion. Two. Possession of abortifacients. Three. Failure to dispose of human remains properly. Who aided and abetted your criminal activity?”
Mom begs them to stop. “Her sick, twisted father did this to her. He came back home…from prison…a month ago…I was out, he was drunk.” Deep breath. “My baby told me he beat her afterwards. I called the cops on him.” Deep breath. “Bastard hung himself in jail.”
“Ma’am, no one has any record of any report, by the accused here, of any such rape. And besides—”
A second badge completes the sentence. “—it’s irrelevant, ma’am. The law’s clear. No exceptions. Save for the life of the mother. And I’d say our mother here looks healthy.”
The third badge is grim. “You all had best get used to the idea this nation will respect the sanctity of all life.”
The badges and the recorder hear the entire story. She couldn’t bear to carry the malformed fruit of her rape one more soul-crushing day. Mom sold everything to get her daughter an abortion.
The doctor looks at his feet as the mom’s cuffed and her rights read to her. When the girl begins pleading he remembers the doctor sentenced to five years last month in Maricopa and says nothing. A retired nurse he admires was arrested last week.
Whenever a young patient of his is sentenced, pro-life radicals celebrate. Last week at a pro-life rally on the National Mall, Gov. Lake, alongside President Trump, celebrated the news of an Arizona mother of six sentenced to five years in prison. “America is standing up for the unborn.”
“My patient needs her rest.” Everyone exits the room save for a gray-haired nurse who tenderly holds the young girl’s cuffed hand in the dark until she falls asleep.
A day later, Gov. Lake wrongly accuses the girl of using abortion as birth control and singles her out for the national spotlight. Fox calls for harsher penalties. Trump rambles about death row.
Arizona’s Attorney General “Honest Abe” Hamadeh, intoxicated by national attention, tries her as an adult, alongside her mother.
Possession of abortifacients adds years to their sentences.
Every appeal is rejected by Trump’s appointed Supreme Court Justices.
David Fitzsimmons, tooner@tucson.com
