Dear Friend,
Something is happening that we all need to pay attention to. Across the country women continue to lose the ability to make decisions about their own bodies in increasingly horrific and dystopian ways. And in the past few months, three women’s stories reveal a crisis that we can no longer ignore.
In Florida, two Black mothers lived something out of a science fiction novel. Cherise Doyley, a mother of three, was 12 hours into active labor when a tablet appeared at her hospital bed — she was in court.[1] No lawyer, no advocate, no time to prepare. The state had filed an emergency petition for her unborn child, not for her. The judge forced a C-section she had explicitly refused. It sent her into postpartum depression.
Brianna Bennett faced the same thing at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital in March 2023. [2] After 24 hours of labor, with no lawyer or advocate, a court ordered her into a C-section. The procedure was complicated, left her with a wound vacuum, and came with warnings against future pregnancies.
Let’s continue to fight for the rights of pregnant women!
Alexia Moore — a 31-year-old U.S. Army veteran and mother of two from Kingsland, Georgia — was charged with murder after being brought to the hospital in extreme pain. The hospital alleges that she consumed abortion medication. In what would be one of the first prosecutions under the state’s 2019 abortion ban, this case should shock us all.[3] Even the Superior Court judge who set her bond at $1 called the charge “extremely problematic” and added “concerns that the state would ever be able to secure a conviction”.[4] She served her country, came home, raised her boys, and found herself in a desperate situation with no safe options. For that, she was sent to jail.
These three cases are not accidents. They are the result of laws that treat pregnant women as less than full humans — laws that force the government into decisions that belong between a woman and her doctor at the most vulnerable moments of her life. These women were mothers. They were informed. They were doing their best. And still, the system failed them.
The question is simple: Should the government have the power to overrule a woman’s medical decisions about her own body?
If your answer is no, it’s time to say so out loud — to the people you elected to represent you.
Thanks for all you do,
–Gina, Tina, Monifa, and the whole MomsRising.org & MamásConPoder Team
References:
[1] She Was in Labor at a Florida Hospital. Then She Was in Zoom Court for Refusing a C-Section.
[2] They Didn’t Want to Have C-Sections. A Judge Would Decide How They Gave Birth.
[3] Woman charged with attempted murder under Georgia abortion law
[4] Judge sets $1 bail for Georgia woman charged with murder for taking abortion pills
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