Banning abortion criminalizes female bodies. Here's why.

Every miscarriage, every period, is now potential evidence of a crime.

If you have a uterus and live in a state that is moving or has moved to criminalize abortion, the end of Roe v. Wade could affect you in ways you might never have imagined.

Over the last three days, choice supporters have highlighted the myriad ways abortion rights save lives. Abortion is the only treatment for ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage, for example. And in the country with the worst maternal mortality rate in the wealthy world, and the only country in which maternal mortality is actively rising, every pregnancy is a potential threat to the life of the pregnant person.

Anti-choicers have predictably responded to this with warnings to “keep your legs shut if you don’t want to live with the consequences of your actions,” ignoring the fact that 20% of women have been raped and reproductive coercion is a real and increasing threat.

We on the left need to widen our focus, though. It’s not just pregnant people, or people who have sex, or people who hope to become pregnant who may suffer and die if they need an abortion and cannot get one.

If abortion becomes illegal, and if states prosecute people who have abortions, then having a uterus becomes a potentially criminal act.

That’s because the line between abortion and miscarriage is not firm. The line between a miscarriage and a period is even less clear.

You might have heard this before. Maybe you’ve even read articles talking about criminalizing periods and miscarriages. This is not hyperbole.

When my husband and I were trying for our first baby, I got a positive pregnancy test after a few months. I was elated. I tested each day to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. My tests were positive for a week.

And then, they started to get lighter.

My husband told me not to worry, but I knew what was coming. I started bleeding.

By the time I got to the doctor, the pregnancy test they gave me was negative. I had been pregnant, but there was no evidence that the pregnancy had ever happened. Were this pregnancy to become a criminal investigation—because, say, someone thought I had illegally induced a miscarriage—I would have no way of proving or disproving that it ever existed. Early pregnancies leave no trace. And early miscarriages can also be early abortions.

Here’s why:

Pregnancy begins when a fertilized egg implants in the lining of the uterus. When this happens, the body starts manufacturing HCG. This is the pregnancy hormone that pregnancy tests detect.

If you have a miscarriage, HCG levels begin dropping. And usually (though not always), you’ll begin bleeding.

This is also what happens if you have an abortion, especially if you choose a medication abortion.

In the case of very early abortions or miscarriages, by the time you start bleeding, a pregnancy test might be negative because your HCG levels have dropped.

This means that anytime a person with a uterus bleeds, this could be a sign that they had an abortion.

Even if you really weren’t pregnant.

Even if you never had a positive pregnancy test.

It doesn’t matter.

Blood is the only evidence of a lot of miscarriages.

And of a lot of abortions.

And every fertile person with a uterus bleeds. Which means we are all, month after month, producing the same evidence an abortion produces.

It doesn’t matter how celibate you are, or how anti-choice you are. If you bleed from your vagina, you’re doing the exact same thing as a person who had an abortion.

Your period is suddenly evidence of a crime.

No one is going to start prosecuting all women, of course.

But draconian laws have always been used to selectively prosecute people in vulnerable situations.

Women in child custody battles.

Women whose kids have already been taken by CPS.

Women on welfare.

Black women.

Poor women.

Addicted women.

Sex workers.

If someone doesn’t like you, or doesn’t like your kind of person, they now have an opportunity to accuse you of a crime, solely because you have a female body.

If your sole defense to this possibility is, “No one would ever do something so unreasonable!” think again.

People have already been prosecuted for having miscarriages and stillbirths. And if you’re hoping to rely on the reasonableness of prosecutors who would prosecute women for having abortions, well…I’m not really sure what to tell you.

Maybe I’ll just remind you that Texas has already deputized everyone to seek out and report people who have abortions.

Or that a major fertility tracking app—the sort of app people use to track periods and miscarriages—is funded by powerful anti-choicers who can and would use the data to report suspected abortions.

Or that states such as Georgia are clamoring to give the death penalty for abortion—which also means the death penalty for a miscarriage or period that is perceived to be an abortion.

If you are banking on the reasonableness or good graces of the people who want women to die from pregnancy, you’re fucked.

We must fight back, and we must not get demoralized. If you don’t think having a female body should be a crime, here’s what you can do right now:

• Donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds to support people who need an abortion today.

• Stop posting bullshit about camping on Facebook. Police are not stupid. Don’t incriminate yourself for a crime you haven’t even committed yet. Just help. Quietly. Without seeking attention. Donating to a person you know won’t get you a tax deduction, but it will help someone right now. Find the people in your life who need help today, and pay up (or offer other material support).

• Give to reproductive justice organizations in your community. More women being forced to have babies now means more women than ever before will struggle with obstetric violence and lack of access to quality care. You can, for example, find your local birth center here.

• Schedule a voter registration drive to make sure everyone you know is able to vote.

• Check the status of your voter registration to make sure you can vote all the motherfuckers out this election season.

• Contact your legislators and demand action. A single call won’t change things, but they do track calls, and sometimes this can move the needle.

It took the right 50 years to get here. We have to prepare for a long fight. Don’t let them demoralize you. We are the majority. Demoralization is the only way they win.