Trump's Threat to Monitor Pregnancies is Real

The Christian Patriarchy already controls women's biological needs

I often wish my work was not so timely.

Which is such an understatement. Sometimes I want to throw up and cry because my work is so timely.

Timely: coming early or at the right time.

I have a story at the bottom of this letter that’s achingly timely.

Time Magazine released an issue exploring “How Far Trump Would Go.” He included a suggestion states could monitor pregnancies for evidence of abortion.

In the authoritarian Christian Patriarchy that backs Trump, this is already true. In that world, there is no contraception. Women don’t have careers or rights. They don’t decide what they’ll read. Healthcare and education are poor, if they exist at all.

Because the Christian Patriarchy has politicized, merging into the more mainstream Nationalism and ultra-conservative GOP, we can view “their America” by examining the lens they lead with: their families. While they flex glossed-up images of traditional roles and obedient lines, survivors reveal the truth of what it’s like to live that way.

I shared a reel this week about why survivors use the word “escape” about Christian Patriarchy. We use that word because that’s what we had to do to get away and find basic freedoms. This particular reel was created in support of Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy by

Cait West

, out now everywhere books are sold. (Read more about Cait’s story in this interview with the author by

Sarah Stankorb

)

The households are controlled in every way: women and children require permission for everything: education, relationships, careers, voting, food intake, privacy, reading, and bathroom usage.

Potty training in Christian Fundamentalist homes is brutal. But if you’re envisioning charts to control bathroom breaks, that’s not quite it.

⏰ Elimination timing

⏰ going on command

⏰ a refusal to be excused

⏰ asking to go as disobedience

⏰ time so scheduled and structured that there’s no room for natural, random, spontaneity for anything

⏰ “die to self” training to shut down personal needs in favor of serving others

It’s like any other conditioning to ignore your body’s needs or responses. Bathroom access, underwear, privacy, etc are all tools of control in the patriarchy—which is why they’ll also deny us other autonomous freedoms. It’s not so much about the vice or virtue of each issue but one of control over your body, heart, and soul. Women and children are objects, vessels, and weapons—not human beings with autonomy or needs. The bathroom control is just a manifestation of that.

It’s not unusual for survivors in the religious trauma and ex-evangelical community to share their struggles over relearning how to listen to their bodies. Embodiment, somatic experiencing, and responding to very basic human needs and feelings are a struggle in recovery and often come with a host of secondary symptoms, like frequent UTIs, yeast infections, sexual dysfunction, vaginismus, dissociation, and leakage.

Monitoring pregnancies is so obvious I forget sometimes that it’s surprising to the outside world; my trauma recalibrated my sensitivity range. But you should be terrified. The world I escaped is coming for American women—even those who grew up in feminism, expecting college and career, assuming healthcare rights, and taking democracy for granted. You should vote like our country and your life depends on it because it does.

I know that in a note like this, I’m “preaching to the choir” so to speak. I hope I’m also arming you with information that emboldens your confidence, revealing truth that reinforces your gut instinct, and offering you solidarity in what it means to have a uterus and be socialized as a female in this country, especially for my fellow trauma survivors.

A few years ago I wrote a short story exploring a near-future where authoritarianism wins. The technology already exists; our medical system is already structured to monitor and report. That version of the story placed in two contests. When Roe fell, I developed it further. It’s been out on submission for about a year; I swallow down the nausea and swap out the headlines in the pitch letter.

I’ve decided to release it in segments here. BIRTH IN A NEW NATION will be linked at the top of my homepage and go out to paid subscribers in segments to fit the length restrictions of the site.

And speaking of paid subscriptions, thank you so very much for supporting this work. In the past six months, The Anti-Fundamentalist has grown to become half of my income. Your support truly allows me to make this war cry and education my full-time endeavor. It’s hard, emotional, and time-consuming work yet it’s work I’ve committed my life to; we can not give up without giving it all we’ve got.

My commitment is partly because helping others with my story helps me reclaim the years lost to high-control religion and abuse. And, partly because I know the only defense we have against the Christian Patriarchy and their authoritarian government is to get the truth out of what it’s like to live under their rule.

Segments begin 5/2/24