Women deserve respect, not cynical speculation

By Ellen Allen

This commentary was originally published on February 26, 2026 in West Virginia Watch. 

West Virginia women are watching our lives be debated by people who do not understand us, do not listen to us, and — judging by a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting earlier this month — do not always respect us.

And we are done staying quiet about it.

During discussion of a bill to block abortion pills from being mailed into West Virginia, Sen. Eric Tarr publicly entertained the idea that women might deliberately get pregnant simply to abort for profit. He speculated about “unscrupulous” women exploiting pregnancy to collect a $10,000 civil payout.

That was not policy analysis. It was a stunning display of contempt.

Pregnancy is not a bargaining chip. It is not a financial scheme. It is a serious medical condition that carries risk, pain and life-altering consequences. We understand this in ways that cannot be reduced to hypotheticals tossed around in a committee room. Suggesting that women would intentionally endanger our bodies for cash strips us of dignity and reduces our lived experiences to a cynical caricature.

West Virginia women carry enormous responsibility every day. We work full time. We coordinate child care and school schedules. We manage doctors appointments for children and aging parents. We navigate a health care system that is often expensive, confusing and out of reach. And when it comes to pregnancy and reproductive health, we bear the physical burden entirely.

Yet when our health is debated, our voices are sidelined.

The Senate Health and Human Resources Committee is overwhelmingly male, with women outnumbered 14 to 2, and in the Senate Judiciary Committee women are outnumbered 14 to 3. When rooms where our health is debated look like this, we should not be surprised when women’s perspectives are sidelined. Tarr’s remarks went unchallenged in the moment, and that silence speaks to a deeper problem: decisions about our bodies are being shaped in spaces where women’s voices carry too little weight. When power is this uneven, harmful assumptions about women are allowed to stand, and we are the ones who live with the consequences.

The hearing only deepened that concern when lawmakers elevated the testimony of a male high school senior as an “expert witness” on abortion access. At a time when women across West Virginia struggle to obtain affordable, comprehensive health care, the Legislature chose to spotlight a teenage boy over adult women and qualified medical professionals.

That choice sent a message, whether intended or not: women’s expertise about our own health is negotiable, even dismissible.

For an organization dedicated to bringing a consumer voice to public policy so that every West Virginian has quality, affordable health care, this moment is about more than one remark. It is about a pattern of policymaking that too often excludes the very people most affected. Health care decisions demand evidence, compassion and respect for lived experience. When lawmakers substitute suspicion and sensationalism for serious engagement, they undermine public trust and risk real harm to the people they serve.

West Virginia women deserve an apology from Tarr and from the Senate Judiciary Committee. But more than that, we deserve structural change in how these conversations happen. Respect cannot be symbolic. It must be reflected in who is heard, whose expertise is valued, and how policy debates are conducted.

And that change will not happen on its own.

Women across this state have power — as patients, caregivers, workers and engaged members of our communities — to insist on better. We can attend public hearings, contact our legislators, share our health care stories and demand that reproductive health discussions be grounded in facts and respect. We can support organizations that amplify women’s voices and push for a health care system that treats us with dignity.

Silence has never protected women’s health. Speaking up can.

West Virginia women are not asking for special treatment. We are demanding the basic respect owed to anyone whose health and autonomy are on the line. Lawmakers should welcome that demand, because an accountable government depends on it.

Our message is simple and overdue: listen to us, respect us, and do better.

And until that happens, we will keep raising our voices.