A Woman's Body: Neither an Incubator, a House, Nor a Meth Lab

Anti-choicers often seem to be a little unclear about what a woman's body is. When they support violating a woman's bodily integrity and human rights, she comes under discussion as a baby-making machine rather than a person. But a woman is not an incubator.

She's also not a house nor a meth lab, although Alabama appears to be particularly confused on this point. You see, they've prosecuted over 20 women under a law that criminalizes bringing children into houses where meth labs are operated. This seems like a pretty good law, but the funny thing is, none of these women were breaking it under any reasonable understanding of the word "house."

Instead, Alexa Kolbi-Molinas of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project writes on RH Reality Check, those prosecuted were women who became pregnant while addicted to meth and decided not to have an abortion. But no matter how concerned they were for the health of their fetus, a meth addiction isn't something you can turn off just like that. From a health standpoint, for both the woman and the fetus, the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics agree that's not something women should be prosecuted for. And especially not under a law that addresses houses and meth labs, not women's bodies.

I can only attribute it to the extremely skewed reproductive rights debate surrounding women's bodies that anyone would make this dehumanizing connection. A woman is a human being. She is not a house, meth lab, or another other kind of inanimate object or dwelling place. Whatever else is up for debate, this shouldn't be.

Photo credit: Filip_is_untitled