Why I'm Voting for Valentine: Abortion

Waking up on June 24, I thought that it would be like any other day. Rolling over to unplug my phone and check my notifications quickly stopped those thoughts: there were easily a dozen headlines about the Dobbs decision. I was shocked. I was livid. I had followed the news earlier that summer when the decision was leaked, but I had held out hope that it wasn’t true. I read through a few of the articles covering the decision before getting out of bed and heading to the living room, where my younger sister was sitting. The first thing I said was “Did you see the news?” She didn’t know what I was talking about, so I filled her in. By this point, Eric Schmitt had already signed Missouri’s trigger law, which bans abortion in Missouri unless the pregnant person’s life is at risk. My outrage at Eric Schmitt has only grown stronger since June 24, but it’s not just my anger that has made me a Trudy Busch Valentine supporter. Let me tell you why.

Going about my day on June 24 meant running errands and fighting back tears as my sister drove us to the store. It meant sitting in the chiropractor’s office in my hometown and deciding that this was the perfect time to start reading the 213-page decision that had taken away my rights.

I don’t want to get an abortion. I never have. But I don’t know what I would do if I were raped. I don’t know what I would do if I had three kids and a deadbeat husband, and I found out that this pregnancy might kill me. I shouldn’t have to worry about that. No one should have to worry about that.

Shortly after the decision was released, my sister shared a Twitter thread. It told the story of an 8-year-old girl whose mother had an ectopic pregnancy pre-Roe, and her father had to get on his knees in front of a hospital board to beg for her life. She said, “I came home from school to find my Mom lying in a puddle of blood. She was weak & asked me to call a neighbor. She was miscarrying, but the embryo would not abort. For 48 hours, she bled while doctors transfused blood, waiting. Abortions were illegal. My Father was required to bring my little sister & I to the hospital boardroom to prove to the board that there were children to consider. I will never forget standing there, watching my Father get on his knees & BEG the board to save my Mother…2 years ago, my daughter had an ectopic pregnancy. It was attached to an artery & if it burst, she would bleed to death before she could make it to an ambulance. Because of Roe, her life was saved…” Abortion is a right because it is healthcare.

Trudy Busch Valentine knows what it’s like to have to make difficult medical decisions. She’s been there for patients – she has seen both the physical and emotional pain that these decisions cause. As she says in this video, “These are very emotionally charged issues, and I’ve seen them in person as a nurse, and politicians should not be involved in any of those personal decisions.” Valentine knows that women and girls across Missouri are scared, and she will be there for us as an advocate in the Senate. Valentine fiercely supports codifying Roe and working to protect women throughout Missouri and across the country. Valentine is the woman Missouri needs in the Senate.

Across the country, the midterm elections are being addressed as a referendum on the Dobbs decision. Here in Missouri, we have a unique opportunity: we are holding a referendum on the Dobbs decision by voting against one of the men that stripped Missouri women of our right to an abortion.

Eric Schmitt has shown that he does not care about Missouri’s women. He does not care about their extenuating circumstances. What he cares about is padding his political portfolio with conservative talking points. For someone who worked so hard to address the backlog in Missouri’s testing of sexual assault kits, you would think that Schmitt might continue to help survivors of sexual assault by not forcing them to carry their rapist’s baby. Oh wait, Eric Schmitt doesn’t care about women, he only cares about himself.

If you are a woman, I need you to register to vote by October 12. You can do it right now, here. It takes five minutes, and you won’t have to do it again unless you move. If you’re upset about the Dobbs decision, if you want your daughters to have as many rights as their mothers, or if you know that a nurse can do a better job at addressing healthcare than an Attorney General, you’ll join me in voting for Trudy Busch Valentine.