“I’m really happy that Trump won. The problem is that people don’t like it when you don’t vote like them: family, friends, colleagues…”
A declared Trumpist, Reven was not able to savor the victory of her candidate in her city Atlanta where the majority population is black people like her:
“I’m a black woman, but I wasn’t going to vote for someone just because she’s a woman and she’s black…that wouldn’t be very smart. Of course, I would love for a woman to be president, but she has to be competent. And when it comes to negotiating, men don’t respect women, because they consider themselves more logical. Making decisions requires logic, not emotion; However, women are often perceived as more emotional, that’s a fact.“
Reven is not representative of African-Americans in Atlanta where it is mainly black women who vote and get involved in politics… They are the ones who do the work, explains Shanita Miller, a young black influencer who knows her city well.
“‘Hands off’… hands off, don’t touch my body “: it was also a slogan during the campaign, taken up by women since the cancellation, in 2022, by the Supreme Court of the federal protection of the right to abortion. This right is now in the hands of the states and varies according to political majorities.
In Georgia, a very conservative Republican state, abortion is only allowed during the first six weeks of pregnancy. After this period, it is only permitted if the fetus’s heart is no longer beating or if the mother’s life is seriously threatened. A law denounced by Democratic Senator Elena Parents:
“Doctors here can be prosecuted for crimes if they perform an abortion…they are afraid so Georgia has a sad record of the number of women who die because of their pregnancy…but many Republicans want to go further by banning the pill the following day”.
Officially, two pregnant women have died in the last two years due to a delay in care in this state which has 11 million inhabitants. And this is what almost happened to Avry Davis-Belle, a 34-year-old genetics researcher, already the mother of a young child. In mid-October, when she was 18 weeks pregnant, she suffered a miscarriage. The baby she wanted so much was no longer viable, and she would have had to undergo emergency surgery.
“The doctors had to wait until my life was in danger, indisputably… and if I didn’t die, it’s because they were excellent. But they had to juggle obstacles that had nothing to do with with medicine or saving lives, and which are subject to the law.
Losing a baby is a sad and painful experience, but these laws, enacted by our former president, have made it even more awful.”
Added to this are the possible complications due to these intervention delays which can lead to sterility. What makes us wonder about the support of certain women for the Republicans who defend this policy, particularly among Latin Americans, the second largest ethnic community in Atlanta. 70% of Latinos support abortion, and yet they voted for Donald Trump, asks Gigi Pedrassa, executive director of the Latino Community Fund of Georgia.
“The Latino community is a conservative community on religion or family, machismo is very present… nevertheless it is a community which aspires to protection, but abortion comes at the bottom of the priorities which are to have a roof, eat and get by…the rest is incidental”
So the Republican government of Georgia now plans to go further, by banning the morning-after pill.
