It’s not that I don’t understand the gotcha-logic. I do. I get it. Time was, I would have said the same thing, myself. I would have said that, if we’re going to go all the way to making abortion illegal in Texas, then let’s really do it: Let’s make sure this man gets tried for murder.

“This man” is Mason Herring, a Houston attorney who tried to force his wife to miscarry her pregnancy by putting misoprostol in her drinking water. Last week, Herring was sentenced to 180 days in jail and 10 years of probation. According to the Associated Press, Herring plead guilty to “injury to a child and assault of a pregnant person,” but was originally charged with “felony assault to induce abortion.”

We can feel a whole bunch of ways about what it means for this kind of abuser to spend (in my opinion, a mere) 180 days in jail for assaulting his wife — and her unborn child — in such a heinous manner. Cases like this really try me as a person who would like to believe she holds anti-carceral values, defund the cops and screw ’em on the way out, etc. But I can’t help it. I hope this asshole rots.

Catherine Herring made no bones about it:

Catherine Herring, who has filed for divorce, told the court the jail sentence was not long enough. She said their 1-year-old daughter, their third child, was born about 10 weeks premature, has developmental delays and attends therapy eight times a week.

“I do not believe that 180 days is justice for attempting to kill your child seven separate times,” Catherine Herring said.

I agree entirely. So I get that it’s extremely tempting to reach for the easy play. To snark that, well, if abortion is outlawed in Texas because it’s the killing of a whole entire living person — which is the view of Texas’ anti-abortion politicians — what this guy did was at least attempted homicide. I’ve seen dozens of posts on social media to this effect; it’s not worth calling anyone out individually. There’s a reason a whole bunch of people decided this was a good dunk. But it really, really isn’t.

Because here’s what: there’s not an abortion within a million miles of this situation. Catherine Herring did not want to end her pregnancy. This is a case of reproductive coercion and abuse. It’s wholly inappropriate to capitulate to the deeply awful premise that the termination of pregnancy per se should ever be considered in the realm of homicide, even in the service of a pro-choice dunk on the illogic and hypocrisy of anti-abortion politics. Doing so keeps the conversation on anti-abortion terms. It’s a needless derail from the real issue behind this nightmarish story: the patriarchy’s relentless desire for control of pregnant people’s bodies, decisions, and lives.

Texas already has laws in place that deal with attacks on pregnant people who have every intention of carrying their pregnancy to term. The solution — even as a sarcastic side-eye — is not to further empower the state to wield what would amount to a premise of fetal personhood as a criminal cudgel, because it mostly won’t be used against the Mason Herrings of the world.

Texas is already teeming with anti-abortion prosecutors and politicians looking for a way to terrorize pregnant people and abortion supporters, chief among them our Attorney General Ken Paxton. If you give motivated anti-abortion prosecutors an inch, they will take miles and miles — and they won’t be looking for abusers, they will be looking to bring homicide charges against people who support abortion care, and people who have abortions — especially self-managed care. Indeed, these ghoulish fucks will very happily defend abusive men who visit their fuckery upon their partners and the public. Hell, Jonathan Mitchell, the architect of Texas’ anti-abortion bans, is already representing Marcus Silva, the domestic abuser suing women who allegedly helped his ex-wife end her pregnancy. And it’s especially telling that the lawyer who ran defense for Mason Herring is Don Cogdell, the same attorney who represented Ken Paxton at his impeachment trial in the Texas Senate.

What Mason Herring did, when he drugged his wife hoping to end her pregnancy without her consent, is exactly what anti-abortion politicians seek to do — control reproductive outcomes for pregnant people irrespective of what pregnant people themselves want.

There’s no need to concede anything about abortion and homicide and the surveillance-police state to the anti-abortion side: they’re already deep, deep in it. Because anti-abortion politics are not just about control, they are about emasculation — about men who feel personally demeaned by the very concept of women and pregnant people’s bodily autonomy and individual agency. There’s no difference between people who support abortion bans and abusers like Mason Herring. They want the same thing: total control over other people’s bodies.

Forced pregnancy and forced pregnancy termination are the same side of the same abuser coin.

These two pictures?

They’re exactly the same.

---

Thanks for reading Home with the Armadillo! To get the latest posts in your inbox, subscribe below. And if you like what you read, consider dropping a few bucks in my tip jar.