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When the Supreme Court’s conservative majority revoked the constitutional right to abortion last month, they knew full well that they were ending a five-decade period in the country’s history. But what would come next? How exactly would American politics and society react to the overthrow of Roe v. Wade, the court’s opinion? read“We don’t pretend to know.”
Americans are now starting to find out. At least nine states have already banned abortion, and many more are expected to follow in the coming weeks. And as Republican-controlled lawmakers explore ways to… criminalize abortion out of stateDemocrat-led states have responded with legislation and executive orders designed to protect patients and healthcare providers from legal threats from beyond their borders, creating, in the words of a new Columbia Law Review articlea “new world of complicated legal conflicts between jurisdictions.”
How can proponents and opponents of abortion rights navigate this new legal and political territory created by the Supreme Court? This is what people say.
‘The end of the beginning’ for the anti-abortion movement
Many opponents of abortion who believe that an embryo or fetus is a human life and that abortion therefore means an destruction of that life do not leave the legality of the procedure to the states. In the Catholic magazine First Things, political scientist Hadley Arkes calls Roe’s overthrow just a “first step,” albeit a “sounding” analogous to Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation, which freed enslaved people in the Confederacy, but not in the slave-owning border states. of the Union. “It’s good that this first step has been taken,” he says writesbut “this is the end of the beginning, and now the work begins again.”
A central goal of that work may be a federal ban on abortion, whether at 15 weeks gestation, 12 weeks, or all cases. Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, tiptoed about the idea, calling it “possibleif his party were to gain control of Congress. Other legislators and high-profile figures in his party have shown more enthusiasm.
“As Roe v. Wade has been relegated to the ash heap of history, a new arena in the cause of life has emerged,” former Vice President Mike Pence said last month. “Now that we have been given this second chance at life, we must not rest and give in until the sanctity of life is restored to every state in the country at the center of American law.”
But abortion bans by themselves will not eradicate abortion, Erika Bachiochi, a conservative legal scholar, writes on time. Particularly given the availability of drug abortion, Bachiochi argues that abortion opponents should also work to reduce demand for the procedure by changing the circumstances that make pregnancy and parenting so difficult (and dangerous) in the United States: “Without solid societal support from pregnant women and children raising children, too many women will be left to view their unborn children as offenders of their already burdened lives rather than unsolicited gifts that open up new horizons for them . These women need the utmost help from society – not abortion or contempt.”
What might such help look like? In The Atlantic, Elizabeth Bruenig argues that abortion opponents should work to make pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum worry-free as a matter of national policy. “Without much structural innovation, the federal government could eliminate these costs altogether, creating deadly barriers to maternal and child care,” she writes. “Medicare already covers the costs of pregnancy and childbirth for people who qualify for the program because of a disability. This coverage could be extended to anyone regardless of disability status, age, income or employment history – and such extension should at least be administratively feasible.”
But as Bruenig points out, realizing such a vision would require the pro-life movement to move beyond its narrow fixation on criminalizing abortion. How likely is such a shift? According to Times columnist Ross Douthat, “within the Republican Party, there is a constituency that is pro-life, socially conservative, economically moderate and open to spending more money.” In theory, Douthat said on last week’s episode of the podcast “The Argument,” “the end of Roe gives that faction more leverage because for the first time they can credibly say that maybe we’re going to vote Democrats now if you’re not willing to spend more.” are broadly pro-life.”
His interlocutor, Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, was dubious: After all, Republican Senator Mitt Romney proposed family-oriented legislation last year that would have helped parents directly, but that policy plan was met with opposition from other members of his party. “My guess — and we’ll find out — is that instead of a right-wing turn toward a more robust welfare state or some sort of more community-based policy, we’ll see even more punitive policies,” Goldberg said. said† “We are going to see who can be criminalized. We’re going to see more studies on miscarriages. We are going to see doctors in prison.”
The way forward for abortion rights
In the short term, one of the most beneficial steps abortion support states can take is to pass laws that protect abortion providers and seekers, David S. Cohen, Greer Donley, and Rachel Rebouché to argue on time. All states, they note, have laws that require their courts to assist with affidavits, subpoenas, and legal processes from other states. Abortion-supporting states could change those laws to prohibit collaboration with out-of-state investigations into abortions that are legal within their borders and with attempts to extradite those who perform them. Likewise, abortion support states could direct their medical boards and malpractice insurance companies not to participate in actions against out-of-state abortion providers that would threaten their medical licenses or insurance status.
“There is no doubt that these actions could threaten the basic principles of cooperation and courtesy necessary for a nation of 50 states to function as a unified whole,” they said. to write† “But these principles are already frayed by anti-abortion states like Missouri trying to legislate beyond their borders.”
In the national electoral arena, Democrats must campaign by appealing to voters’ credible fears of a national abortion ban, Ana Marie Cox argues in The Times, and by promising to take specific measures to protect access to abortion. “I’m honestly not sure if it matters what those action points are; I know Democrats will have to throw out any concerns about the appearance of moderation,” she wrote. “Right now, all ideas about bridging the gap to abortion access sound extreme,” but, she adds, “so did overthrowing Roe v. Wade.”
Some prominent abortion rights advocates have emphasized that voting alone is a necessary but insufficient response at the moment. “We must fill the streets,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said at a meeting before the Supreme Court last month. “We need sand in every damn gear.”
My colleague Jay Caspian Kang agrees. He calls for a day of nationwide demonstrations for abortion rights, sponsored and organized by the Democratic Party leadership. “If democratic leadership is to reap the political benefits of an issue that nearly nine out of ten Democrats largely agree on,” he said. writes“they need to stop turning the left and make sure they are able to earn the political rewards of what promises to be another summer of protest.”
In the coming months and years, abortion rights advocates will also need to reflect on their tactical mistakes that made this moment possible, argues Mary Ziegler, a legal historian, in The Times. “They failed to mobilize voters to worry about control of the courts the way conservatives did during the… last half century.,” she writes. “The abortion rights movement often ignored the ideas and needs of people of color, and they often treated Roe as a problem in its own right — one that could be separated from battles over racism or voting rights or birth control — in ways that their movement ready for failure†
At the same time, Jia Tolentino believes abortion rights advocates should abandon the prudishness and euphemism that characterized mainstream pro-choice rhetoric. (It took Biden more than a year in office, she notes, to even say the word “abortion.”)
“That approach brought us here,” she says writes in The New Yorker. “We are not going back to the pre-Roe era, nor should we want to go back to the era that followed, which was less bitter than the present, but was never good enough. We should demand more, and we should. We will have to be candid and unconditional about abortion as a necessary condition for justice and equal rights if we are to have even a chance of getting better anywhere.”
Do you have a point of view that we missed? Email us at [email protected]† Mention your name, age and place of residence in your response, this can be included in the next newsletter.
READ MORE
“How Abortion Bans Across America Will Ripple” [The New York Times]
“How They Did It” [Know Your Enemy]