By Megan Crepeau
Any female Arizonans reading out there? If so - my best wishes to you! According to a bill that just passed the Arizona House, you're pregnant!
[The bill] states that abortion would be banned 20 weeks into a pregnancy. But reproductive rights advocates point out that Arizona's law would actually be more restrictive than others, as the bill states that the gestational age of the fetus should be "calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of the pregnant woman."
Not to go all middle-school health on you, but that's not exactly the same as the actual date the egg and the sperm hooked up. Figuring out that exact point one became pregnant can be tricky. Most women ovulate about 14 or 15 days after their period starts, and women can usually get pregnant from sexual intercourse that occured anywhere between five days before ovulation and a day after it. Arizona's law would start the clock at a woman's last period—which means, in practice, that the law prohibits abortion later than 18 weeks after a woman actually becomes pregnant.
So a woman in Arizona could hear from her doctor that she's about 17 weeks pregnant. Then she'd hear from her legislators that, nope, she's actually 19 weeks along, and has only one week to try to get a legal abortion.
Never mind that it's pretty difficult to conceive during a menstrual period. The Arizona Legislature knows what's good for women, and what's good for women is telling them they're pregnant before they really are.
Amanda Marcotte at Reproductive Health Reality Check takes this all to its logical end:
Think about the implications down the road. If a woman is “pregnant” two weeks before she becomes pregnant, than any fertile woman---including those currently menstruating!---should really be considered pregnant. After all, we don’t know the future. We don’t know that any non-pregnant woman couldn’t be pregnant two weeks from now, making her retroactively pregnant now. Considering that it’s anti-choice nuts we’re talking about, it’s safe to assume that they’d simply prefer a situation where all women of reproductive age are considered to be pregnant, on the grounds that they could be two weeks from now. Better safe than sorry, especially if that mentality means you get to exert maximum control over the bodies of women of reproductive age.
Like I said, congratulations, Arizonan ladies! You all could be pregnant in the eyes of the law! Now put down that beer.