Banning Abortion Is Just The Beginning For The Right

[Celerity]

Trump and McConnell's plan to ram a far right Supreme Court Justice through weeks before the election will have unfathomably grave consequences for America.

https://thebanter.substack.com/p/banning-abortion-is-just-the-beginning



With a 6-3 majority and 4 more years of Trump, America will look at the banning of abortion not as the culmination of a long-held right-wing fantasy but the beginning of the descent into a true police state. Far too many people, including older people who do not have the excuse of being born decades after Roe v. Wade was decided, do not seem to understand how deeply the right-wing hates the concept of individual freedom. They think their opposition to abortion is just about hurting women or as a useful culture war tool. It is so much worse than that.

Attacking Reproductive Rights Is Easy

The reason there is so much focus on abortion is because women are an easy target in America. It’s a given that we are a deeply racist country. We wallow in it like a pig in filth and refuse to confront our racist past lest we upset the millions of hardcore bigots who both venerate that racism and pretend it doesn’t exist in the same breath. But aside from the racism deep in our national DNA, we are also a seriously misogynistic country. We may no longer treat women like property the way they do in fundamentalist Islamic countries, but we’re not so many decades away from when we did. We did not allow women to own a credit card until the 1970s unless her husband signed off on it. We’re just 100 years out from women gaining the right to vote. Starting in 1907, we sterilized tens of thousands of women (but far less men) against their will; a practice we’ve started again in Trump’s concentration camps.

Today, dress codes in schools almost exclusively apply to girls. Women are regularly misdiagnosed by doctors because they are not taken seriously when they complain of symptoms. The overwhelming majority of rapists go unpunished, even after #MeToo. Thus, it should come as no surprise that there are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of laws regulating women’s bodies. And where there are no laws, there’s this: People who want their tubes tied (formally known as tubal ligation) can be denied the procedure for a multitude of reasons at various stages of their lives: because they’re too young, childless, only have one child, are not married, are married to someone with a risky job—the list goes on. Try getting a law passed in, say, Kansas to stop doctors from telling women they can’t get their tubes tied and they’ll laugh you out of the legislative chamber. Mind you, no babies are being harmed but the very idea of allowing women the freedom to make their own decisions is borderline insane to conservatives. But people are fooling themselves if they think the right will stop once they’ve turned women into broodmares. The real prize is the right to privacy.

Griswold v. Connecticut

If you don’t know Griswold, you had best familiarize yourself with it and fast. While Roe is the decision that allows women to have an abortion, Griswold is the decision from eight years prior that allows women, including married women, to have any kind of reproductive rights at all. Before Griswold, it was 100% legal and constitutional to ban contraceptives. Not just birth control pills but every kind of contraceptive. Without this one decision, there would be legal IUDs, no spermicidal jellies, no diaphragms, no condoms, no pills, nothing. About ten seconds after the Republican extremists on the Supreme Court do away with Roe, Republicans in deep red states will be going after Griswold. This is not conjecture. Rick Santorum was openly discussing this during his 2012 presidential run and no one on the right blinked an eye. They didn’t see anything wrong with calling for the overturning of Griswold which would lead to the banning of all contraceptives.

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[Thekaspervote]

1. I have one thing to say to all you men supporting this. "You put the aspirin between your knees"

We’re done with you!

And all women ...welcome to the world of vibrators!!

[jmowreader]

2. They are also going after gay rights

Obergefell isn't the only thing they'll reverse. They also want Lawrence v. Texas (the case that legalized consensual same-sex sexual relations).

If given a chance, they will destroy everything that you like and they don't, just because they can.

[budkin]

11. Absolutely. Gay marriage is toast too

Roe is just the first domino to fall.

[Yavin4]

3. Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is great.

[smirkymonkey]

4. For anyone who thinks it can't become like "The Handmaid's Tale" in this country,

just look at what it was like in Afghanistan back in the 1970's for women vs. today. If the Christian Fundamentalists get their way, we could end up living much the same way.

[bdamomma]

6. geez smirkymonkey

it can happen here, but he's a idiot, or more like a cult. Handmaids Tale?, it's getting to real now.

But there are still some of us who have brains to stop this.

[roamer65]

5. Trying to turn back the clock will be a LOT harder than what they think.

There will be bloodshed and a LOT of it will be theirs.

[bdamomma]

7. there will

be bloodshed, or many of his cultists dying from Covid.

[Buckeyeblue]

8. Yes. It's the tip of the iceberg. Roe gets the crazies excited.

It's doing away with workers rights, giving more rights to corporations, doing away with environmental protections, giving free reign to law enforcement and so forth that gets the facists excited.

But we need to get Biden elected and flip the Senate and then weigh our options.

I would suggest the following:

1. A federal law affirming women's reproductive rights, which would include abortion rights, birth control rights, access to healthcare. This affirmation of rights would be difficult for the court to overturn. It doesn't violate the constitution.

2. See #1 but substitute marriage equality.

3. Pass federal law enforcement guidelines that mandate things like miranda rights, search and seizure guidelines, etc.

4. Repeal ACA and replace it with a slightly different version of ACA II. That would make the current SC case moot, as it would no longer be law. If there is going to be another challenge, it would have to start over.

5. The left needs to be very careful about what to challenge. Don't let the court have too many big rulings. Use legislation when possible.

[RazzleCat]

9. yes banning abortion is easy, because

they know they will still be able to get one. True story my mom thought she was pregnant again (pre Roe v Wade), nope not doing it again her baby was 8 years old, no more. She did the leg work (no internet, no planned parenthood, no PSA) went to the library and found out where abortion was legal. I believe it was Sweden (don't hold me to that, it was Northern European). Long short, told my father, I need to go, NOW (yes we had money). Well it was menopause, but the moral if you have cash, abortion is available. When telling me this story (if was the day Roe v Wade was decided), she went on to say how hard it was because we have moved recently so she no longer had doctor friends who might be talked into a quick therapeutic D and C. Again, if your rich, if your friends are doctors, lawyers, judges, CEO's abortion is always available.

Most important that scare changed my mom for good. She always voted abortion rights after that.

[KWR65]

10. Yes. If they get abortion rolled back then they will go after all birth control.

[moondust]

12. Having earned their halos,

they'll be convinced they're glorious saints free to do whatever they want with God's blessing.