While in Ohio for university in 2017, one of my friends was raped. She didn’t find out she was pregnant until she was eight weeks into her first trimester. She decided to have an abortion, describing it as the hardest decision she had ever made.

The terrible truth, in hindsight, is that she was fortunate to have been allowed to make that decision in the first place. In April this year, Ohio passed a bill that, once it goes into effect in July, will ban all abortions after a foetal heartbeat is detected. It’s worth noting that a heartbeat can be first heard in most pregnancies around five or six weeks, long before most women know that they are even pregnant. It’s worth noting, too, that this bill includes no exceptions for pregnancy due to rape or incest.

This same control over women’s bodies is being extended all over the US. A bill was recently signed in Georgia known as the “Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act”, which – similar to those bills passed in Kentucky, Mississippi, and now Alabama – states that it is illegal to receive an abortion if a foetal heartbeat can be detected.

These bills allow for abortions to be performed only if a mother’s life is in danger. Basically, the rights of the foetus (which, at six weeks, is no bigger than a small pea) seem to supersede the rights of the mother.

“I am American and I am afraid: Why the abortion ban is so disturbing”