The strategy of patriarchal restorationists on the evangelical right has long been to strip women of human dignity, and to force them to bear unwanted children in rage and pain. We’re not supposed to talk about any of these ugly, grimy details: the pain, the blood, the tearing, the exhaustion, the insecurity, the poverty. We’re not supposed to talk about all the bitter, degrading things that go along with pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood in an economy designed and run by men. No, we’re supposed to meekly wipe up the blood and the shit and spend exhausted weeks climbing stairs to nowhere in the gym to “get back” our “pre-pregnancy bodies.” If we commit the cardinal sin of having a pregnancy terminated, we are supposed to be ashamed, to whisper it, to make a show of shame—just as we are supposed to be ashamed of consensual sex, just as we are supposed to be ashamed of surviving rape.

It’s time to be completely clear. Forcing a woman to give birth against her will is morally equivalent to rape. It’s exactly the same logic of entitlement and abuse: Men get to control women’s bodies. Female sexual agency must be punished. Women’s consent does not matter.

This is not a moment to mince words. This is a moment for moral clarity. Women’s personhood is not conditional. Women’s sexuality is not shameful. The only shameful thing, the only thing that no citizen who believes even fractionally in freedom should tolerate, is a world in which women are treated like things.