Rage-mute so writing: SCOTUS and abortion
/After many years of sitting daily in a beautiful chair that is really meant to be a rarely-used accent, I finally purchased a proper desk chair for my office. Though proper, it’s very chic. All green boucle and bowtie lines and midcentury lovely. Because I’m middle-aged, I also put a stylish lumbar pillow on it. I’m very pleased. (I am not pleased that I just had to zoom my screen to 110%, but whatever.)
I share this because I’ve been sitting in said chair for hours now, propped against said pillow, sputtering with fury that is so frothy and incandescent that when I placed fingertips to keyboard, I went blank for a moment and had to ground myself by taking a deep breath and focusing on something simple, physical, and present.
Alito’s draft opinion arguing for Roe v Wade to be overturned is a gut punch that we all knew was coming. Its arrival (via leak!) makes a hideous theoretical an even more hideous reality. Every friend I’ve spoken to today is a roiling cauldron of revulsion, rage, and “I told you so, Susan Fucking Collins.”
As you may have seen, old Susan today has expressed concern that “If this leaked draft opinion is the final decision…it would be completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office.” Lisa M also expressed shock at being misled: “My confidence in the court has been rocked.”
I’m no politician or seer, but I and everyone I know knew that Gorsuch, Calendars, and Handmaid wouldn’t give two holy crucifixes about stare decisis when it came to Roe. Nor will they when it comes to overturning gay marriage (made law in Obergefell) and all other standing rights that don’t map with their extremist white, Catholic/Christian, heteronormative worldview. In short, they lied, under oath, during their confirmations. (Also, did Susan or Lisa or anyone in their party say anything when Droopy Dog McConnell stole the SCOTUS seat from Garland during Obama’s tenure? They did not.)
Alito’s opinion says that states can criminalize abortion with NO exemption for rape or incest. And because so many lawmakers and politicians appear wholly or willfully ignorant about basic science, some want there to not even be exemptions for the health or life of the mother. Observe what this terrifying fool from Oklahoma: said just last week:
"A child who is, in fact, living out part of his or her early life as an ectopic pregnancy is still a unique human being with its own DNA. I don't understand why we allow those children to be murdered."
—Okla Sen. Warren Hamilton (R-Ignorance)
Ectopic pregnancies are NEVER viable and without intervention, they will rupture and KILL the woman.
What this all means is forced pregnancy and forced birth. Can you imagine if your father raped your sister and she HAD to carry and give birth to that baby?
Just one day after Warren Hamilton opined about murdering ectopic fetuses, Ohio state rep, Jean Schmidt (R-Gilead), in response to a Democratic colleague’s hypothetical about a 13-year-old rape victim, said:
“It is a shame that it happens, but there’s an opportunity for that woman, no matter how young or old she is, to make a determination about what she’s going to do to help that life be a productive human being.”
That is sick and perverse beyond compare.
If Roe is overturned, the 13 states with trigger laws banning abortion will immediately put those into effect. Literally overnight, what was a legal right becomes an illegal crime. Five other states will revert to the bans they had in place pre-Roe. Those 18 states do not include Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, or Ohio, all of which will almost certainly institute similarly draconian laws stripping women of reproductive rights. The Guttmacher Institute believes that Montana, Nebraska, and Indiana will join the right-wing flank, and at that point, a full HALF of the United States will, essentially, be Gilead.
The governors of California and New York have already asserted that they will remain safe havens for abortion providers and those who need their services. But what happens if the Republicans manage to pass a national abortion ban? Without a constitutional guarantee that states can write and enforce their own laws—like the one we thought we had via Roe and the right to privacy—nowhere will be safe.
What the Republicans are resigning women to, in particular poor women and women of color, is evil and cruel. It is unconscionable. It’s not like America does a great job of feeding, educating, or caring for most kids anyway. We have the highest maternal mortality rate of any developed country, we do not offer much or any paid maternity and paternity leave. We don’t have universally affordable quality childcare. We use prisons as mental health holding pens for entirely too many suffering people. The healthcare system is, by and large, a mess. Does any of that sound pro-life to you? It’s not. It is disgraceful.
The Republicans and a really gross number of Christians have spent decades putting an overturn of Roe into place. Why do you think they’ve been gutting voting rights so deeply?
I really don’t feel much hope for American democracy. I hope I’m wrong, but I just don’t see much evidence to the contrary. Off to the Supreme Court to protest. Use your voices, y’all.
