The fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization continues. Immediately after the announcement of the ruling on Friday, June 24, 2022, women had to be turned away in waiting rooms for abortions in Texas and many other states with laws on the books, many of which were added quite recently, banning some or all abortions. This is an important component of women's healthcare and bodily autonomy that had been federally upheld under the prior judicial interpretation of the United States Constitution from 1973 to 2022 in Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992).
Historian Heather Cox Richardson notes that the current argument from proponents of the new regime is a repeat of past arguments for "popular sovereignty" regarding whether slavery should be enshrined in law or outlawed. Both arguments claim to uphold local control by appealing to the concept of states' rights, with the voters of each state deciding who to elect, and then those elected officials in the state legislature and governor's mansion deciding what is right for the people of their states. However, these arguments are erroneous in at least 3 dimensions:
Our nation's founders upheld the principle that certain rights are unalienable. Even if a majority of voters in a particular jurisdiction want to impose slavery or some other injustice against a minority, this is in conflict with our national constitution. Notably, our constitution does not purport to "give" rights, but rather upholds the rights that come from our creator. The right to bodily autonomy is clearly among these rights according to most judicial precedents and constitutional scholars.
The process by which both "popular sovereignty" of slavery and abortion bans have been imposed is undemocratic. This was worse in the 19th century with blanket disenfranchisement of people subject to slavery, women, people living in poverty, and so forth. Nonetheless, the states that have imposed abortion bans have often cemented Republican control of the legislatures and governors' offices via gerrymandering and by adding unnecessary impediments to voting that especially disenfranchise people of color and those living in poverty, even when the overall electorate is split between the 2 major parties rather equally. For example, Florida statewide elections remain competitive for Democrats, but Republicans control 60% of the Florida House and 65% of the Florida Senate.
Most importantly, "states' rights" is a stepping stone to nationwide implementation via the federal government. Abraham Lincoln noted this and, in a famous quote, predicted that the United States would either end up abolishing slavery or exporting it to formerly free states. In a speech to the Illinois Republican State Convention on June 16, 1858, as the party's U.S. Senate nominee, he warned: "Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new-North as well as South." In 2022, we should take heed: The same thing will happen with abortion. Already, states are looking to excessively punish abortion providers and women receiving abortion. Questions remain of whether home states will punish women who cross state lines for an abortion. Abortion bans, such as Florida's new ban on abortions after 15 weeks from last menstruation that takes effect on July 1, 2022, remain questionable in terms of how they will be policed and enforced, and whether abortion providers will persist with such risks to their medical licenses and risks of civil and criminal penalties. Florida's new ban has no exception for incest, rape or human trafficking, but even in states that have exceptions for these, it may be impossible to find an abortion provider. Overall, the extreme argument pushed by increasing numbers of elected Republicans is that all abortions are murders, and there is a real possibility of them being prosecuted as such in the future (see the 2022 prosecution of Lizelle Herrera in Texas, which was dropped, but is a harbinger). Moreover, the arguments of the majority in Dobbs suggest unraveling rights to gay marriage, contraception, and non-heterosexual intimacy in the future.
As Lincoln warned with slavery, abortion bans will at first be done state-by-state, and then the tyranny will come for the other states via the national government. For instance, DeSantis' recent redistricting gerrymander probably will award 20 of Florida's 28 U.S. House seats to Republicans. That's 71.4%, in a state where DeSantis only received 49.6% of the vote in his successful 2018 gubernatorial campaign. The U.S. House may flip to Republicans even if this is contrary to most Americans' wishes, the U.S. Senate benefits the Republicans from having 2 senators per state even in rural states, and the presidency can be controlled by minority rule via the Electoral College, voter suppression, or even blatant fraud as Donald Trump tried to execute at the January 6, 2021 joint session of Congress to count the Electoral College ballots.
Shockingly, even with Florida's new 15-week-from-last-menstruation abortion ban with no exceptions for incest, rape, or human trafficking that comes into force on July 1, 2022, Florida will actually continue to be a safe haven for abortion, compared to many neighboring states. I will discuss why in tomorrow's letter.
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Notes:
https://19thnews.org/2022/06/patients-abortion-clinics-texas-turned-away-roe-overturned/
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/19-states-enacted-voting-restrictions-2021-rcna8342
https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/housedivided.htm
https://www.npr.org/2022/04/14/1084485963/florida-abortion-law-15-weeks
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/27/abortion-exceptions-doctor-shortage-00042373
Great post, thank you.
Most countries around the world either ban abortions, or have strict regulations. Holland only allows abortion up to 24 weeks. and Holland is the most progressive country in the EU.
https://righttolife.org.uk/what-are-the-abortion-time-limits-in-eu-countries
We are one of a few countries, including China and North Korea that allow this deadly practice. In US your allowed full term abortions, they keep the baby alive and sent it to the university of Indiana to research on. A lot of people sympathize when mothers are in trouble. But the left went too far so those states banned it outright because of what the left has done.
https://gettr.com/post/p1fusi9d241
60 MILLION babies have been killed by abortion since 1973/ Roe started!
And the baby in roe vs wade was never aborted, she was adopted !
https://nypost.com/2021/09/09/roe-v-wade-baby-revealed-to-be-shelley-lynn-thornton/