If an abusive partner is controlling your finances, your whereabouts and who you socialize with, they're likely going to control your reproductive choices, too. And S.B. 8 just made it a lot easier for them to do that.
Warning: The following story contains descriptions of domestic abuse.
Seven days after Pushpa gave birth to her son, her husband became angry. Angrier than usual. He snatched their newborn out of her arms and began hitting her. One arm holding the baby and one fist aimed at her.
Lying in a hospital bed later that day, Pushpa realized just how much she had endured over the last year. Her husband had moved them to Texas to live with his family ― forcing her to quit her job and leave her friends. Not only was her husband physically and verbally abusive, but her in-laws were also verbally abusive. Throughout Pushpa’s first trimester, her husband and her in-laws confined her to her bedroom. Later in her pregnancy, they allowed her to access other parts of the house like the kitchen. She was riddled with anxiety throughout the pregnancy, causing her blood pressure to fluctuate and forcing her to have an emergency cesarean section.
“The whole nine months of my pregnancy, I never got to eat outside. I never got to go for a walk. I wasn’t even allowed to make food for myself in the beginning,” Pushpa, an immigrant from India in her mid-30s, told HuffPost. (HuffPost is using a pseudonym to protect Pushpa’s identity.)
