"My heart hurts," she said.

She came into my classroom, clearly agitated. I had a mountain of grading to do, but I could tell this couldn't wait. I asked her what was up.

"Have you seen what's going on in Alabama? In Georgia? In Missouri? I can't even process this. I just can't. I'm so afraid."

And we talked.

We talked about my own miscarriage years ago at 6 weeks pregnant, when my uterus reabsorbed the embryo, which would have been the size of a pomegranate seed. With no proof of natural miscarriage except for exceptional cramping, dropping hormone rates, and extensive bleeding, could I have been investigated for murder under these new laws?

We talked about the 4 miscarriages her own mom had endured; about the endometriosis that runs in her family, making dangerous ectopic pregnancies highly probable. "Why do these people value a fetus more than they value my life?" she asked. "Why isn't my own life important? If I got pregnant, I could die. Why do they value the not-born more than the born?"

She showed me the social media posts she had seen, where old men were spouting highly unscientific "facts" about pregnancy, clearly showing no understanding of women's bodies, nor of gestational development.

Photo by Victor Lozano on Unsplash

"My heart hurts," she said. "Why don't they value our lives?"

And what could I say to calm her fears?

Later in the day, another student came into the room, 20 minutes late to class. She kept her face hidden, her hair hiding her eyes. She handed me her late pass, avoiding eye contact. I asked her if she was okay. "Yeah," she said.

But I knew. I knew she was not okay. These men ranting about adoption and rape and insisting that pregnancies conceived in rape were more important than the women who had been raped were causing harm to this girl. This girl, who has been abused and raped as a child, was reliving those moments again and again, triggered by the news telling her that her horrors would have been blessing, were she only lucky enough to get pregnant.

What can I say to alleviate her pain?

Still later, on Facebook, a former student and dear friend works through her own pain, dealing with the anniversary of her ectopic pregnancy and the health scares and crippling depression that followed. Daily, she is stunned by the men spouting fallacies about "transplanting embryos" as she attempts to get on with her life and heal her body and her heart.

What can I say to help her heal?

Another hour, another beautiful girl, 6 months pregnant, takes a seat and opens her journal. She writes about the moment she realized she was pregnant, eating breakfast with her grandma at Bob Evans.

And still, two hours later, another pregnant girl, this one a senior, smiling gently, knowing that she will graduate. Knowing that she will not go to college or open her yoga studio or follow the dreams she once had.

These pregnant teenage girls will never again be able to jump on a trampoline, sprint down the hall, or do jumping jacks without peeing their pants. These girls will have their perineum torn as they give birth. They will have stitches, stretch marks, and scars. They will never be able to go out with friends without spending a fortune on a babysitter. They will never sleep through the night. They will probably never earn their future 79 cents on the dollar like the other women in our country who were lucky enough to not get knocked up during their high school years. And their babies will have a higher chance of crib death, learning disabilities, addiction, and childhood poverty.

My own daughter turns 13 next month.

I lost my virginity when I was 13, not entirely by choice. Thankfully, I escaped pregnancy.

What do I say to my daughter to keep her safe?

How do we explain to our girls this fetishization of the fetus, the valuing of a life only if it remains unborn, in its pure, virginal state?

Because our girls are watching; they are listening. And they understand that if these laws are allowed to stand, it means that we value a fetus--a heartbeat, but no brain and no ability to feel pain--more than we value the beautiful young women forced to give birth. Our girls have hearts that hurt with this knowledge that they are not valued, nor are they truly wanted once they have been born.