You probably already know about it: The long-awaited, ultra-modern, easily expandable replacement of what Utahns affectionately use to call "Point of the Mountain" is finally ready for business.
On June 22, 2022, Gov. Spencer Cox and Brian Nelson, executive director of Utah's Department of Corrections, along with a small group of Utahns, gathered for the official ribbon-cutting ceremony of the new Utah State Prison facility, located just west of the Salt Lake City International Airport. The six-year project, originally budgeted at $550 million, ended up costing a whopping $1.05 billion.
With its opening, Utah has some bragging rights. The new prison has 3,600 beds and, though it conspicuously lacks a golf course, health spa and tennis club, it's designed to make incarceration a bit more humane for those who will live there. Importantly, according to state correctional officials, it will strive to end the high rates of recidivism by better addressing mental health, education and other essential reformative programs.
Among the inmates will be the predictable drug offenders and violent criminals. But several inmates could soon include pro-choice M.D.s or vulnerable women who fail to obey Utah's new "trigger" abortion law—which bans abortions for virtually every reason except rape, incest, an improperly developed fetus or the likelihood that the mother's life will be endangered.
The new law—temporarily blocked by a restraining order while Planned Parenthood of Utah seeks an injunction to prevent the law from going into effect—will make abortions, for any other reasons, a criminal offense. (That will include the roughly 86% of rape victims who don't file an actual police report. The new law requires that, to claim a rape, there must be an official report—something that so many severely traumatized victims loathe to do.)
To normal human beings, the trigger law constitutes a horrible failure—the failure of our state to protect the rights of its citizens.
And it gets worse: Sen. Dan McCay, R-Riverton, who sponsored the "trigger law," has mentioned there's even a possibility of new legislation that would make it criminal for a Utah woman to travel to another state for the purpose of terminating a pregnancy—something that a number of businesses and activist groups have vowed to support.
Sadly, it is the smug, white-shirted, male legislators like McCay who have effectively trashed the rights of women. Of worthy note, all six women Utah state senators—two Republican and four Democrat—walked out when a companion abortion law, the forced viewing of the fetal ultrasound, was set for a vote.
A key function of the federal government is to defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic, but in allowing a hopelessly prejudiced court to end the right of reproductive choice, the United States has failed to defend against what can only be described as an internal enemy of the people.
A woman's right to abortion (or lack thereof) goes hand in hand with the state's criminal-justice system. We know, from experience, where unwanted babies often end up later in life: dead or in prison. Many unwanted children become the crackheads, murderers and felons of tomorrow's Utah. When women who lack the financial resources, education and stable family situations are forced to go full-term, we all will suffer the consequences in the years that follow.
Prisons and prohibitions on abortion are very much companion problems. We're going to need more prison cells to accommodate the thousands of poor, disadvantaged children who will be born with little hope of finding this world a friendly place.
If Utah is going to force women to have babies, it will have to provide for those babies and subsidize their lives for the first 20 years. But wait a minute: Aren't these politically deluded zealots—the ones now blocking access to abortion—also the ones who are solidly against the necessary social programs to provide for the disadvantaged in our state?
Really, Utah, we can't have it both ways. If we're going to force women to go full-term, we're also going to have to fork out the dough to help these same unwanted children make it to adulthood.
Because of Utah's trigger abortion law, welfare claims will expand, and more children will be destined to be either physical or financial wards of our state. It eludes me that the most devastating high-court decision can be applauded by anyone but the most backward and ignorant, and the SCOTUS pronouncement will have far-reaching ramifications, particularly among poor people of color.
When we look at Utah's historical abortion data, had it not been viewed as a constitutional right, we're talking about thousands of unwanted children. During 2019, for instance, there were more than 2,700 abortions, of which only 14 would have been legal under the new law.
More babies? Are the radical right-wing Christian zealots going to take care of them after birth? Not on your life! These same smug bastards are going to be complaining forever about the welfare rolls and the crime, never stopping to consider how their callous stupidity contributed to the problem.
The author is a retired businessman, novelist, columnist and former Vietnam-era Army assistant public information officer. He lives in Riverton, Utah, with his wife, Carol, and the beloved ashes of their mongrel dog. Send feedback to comments@cityweekly.net