We fought. We lost. Roe v Wade is no longer the law of the land. Now, each state can decide what to do with a uterus and its contents.

Four states have decided to forgo uterine control: Vermont, New Jersey, Colorado, and New Mexico have no restrictions on when or if, a uterus gets emptied. That means that persons who could give birth are not subject to any state law taking ownership of their bodies. The state legislators have wisely left these personal and complex decisions out of state law because it is none of their business. These are the free states.

Then there are the slave states, the other forty-six. And yes, that includes the “liberal” states such as California, Massachusetts, and New York. These are states that exert state control over citizens’ bodies. In these states, the debate has centered around at what point in pregnancy the state can commandeer its citizens’ uteruses. Conception? Detectable heart sounds? Six weeks? Viability? Twenty-four weeks? Birth? In all of these states, at some point in a pregnancy, the state privileges the right to life of the potential citizen over the actual living citizen.

Regardless of the timing, once a state decides it has the right to control, through state statutes, a person who has a uterus, that person becomes enslaved. And the thing about slavery is that it isn’t one of those conditions that exist only in part. You are either free to control your organs or you are not. You can’t be a little bit pregnant.

Laws are being drafted right now that would criminalize interstate travel for a pregnant person traveling to a free state to obtain an abortion, reminiscent of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, a particularly vile Federal law putting all Black people at risk of enslavement regardless of where they lived or their manumission status. Enslaved people who escaped to free states were subject to capture by anyone who was reclaiming their “property,” just as people are now subject to arrest if they cross state lines trying to exercise control over their bodies.

Other laws would subject anyone who helps a person seeking an abortion to various criminal, or civil penalties, either through odious Texas-style citizen-initiated lawsuits with substantial financial penalties or through criminal statutes. Either way, such laws are meant as a deterrent, and they work. In Montana, abortion clinics refuse to give South Dakota people asking for abortion pills since the abortion would occur in their home state where abortion is banned.

We don’t need to re-instate the abortion standard set by Roe v Wade. The Supreme Court has made it clear that since the Constitution did not explicitly grant abortion rights, they don’t exist under the Fourteenth Amendment. We have an excellent amendment that will do the job of freeing all citizens from uterine bondage, the Thirteenth. It’s simple and easy to understand:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Forcing a person to bear a child is the very definition of involuntary servitude. Pregnancy can be difficult and dangerous, and giving birth is called labor for a reason. The state shouldn’t be making anyone bear a child.

We fought a war to free enslaved people. We are now engaged in another.