Conservative Christians display a penchant for leaning more heavily for guidance on the pre-Jesus sections of their Bibles than on the gospels and the New Testament. Something about smiting enemies and sending them to the place of eternal torment holds greater appeal than admonitions to love them and to care for the poor and immigrants. Given the unholy alliance between between conservative politics and conservative Christianity, it is no surprise that right-wing extremists on the Supreme Court prefer to read the Constitution the way evangelicals read the scriptures. That is, selectively, and with a preference for American mores and jurisprudence of the nintheenth century. When men were men and all others were second-class citizens, if not property.
Adam Serwer recently dubbed this approach “undead constitutionalism.” The Roberts court’s primary role, he writes:
… is to force a right-wing vision of American society on the rest of the country. The conservative majority’s main vehicle for this imposition is a presentist historical analysis that takes whatever stances define right-wing cultural and political identity at a given moment and asserts them as essential aspects of American law since the founding, and therefore obligatory. Conservatives have long attacked the left for supporting a “living constitutionalism,” which they say renders the law arbitrary and meaningless. But the current majority’s approach is itself a kind of undead constitutionalism—one in which the dictates of the Constitution retrospectively shift with whatever Fox News happens to be furious about. Legal outcomes preferred by today’s American right conveniently turn out to be what the Founding Fathers wanted all along.
That is, the court interprets the Constitution the way fundamentalists interpret the Bible. They bring their preconceived notions to it and search out justifcation in the text, primarily the Old Testament. Conspiracy theorists do the same in compiling “evidence” to support their beliefs. The quality of constitutional reasoning behind recent court majority decisions is as that of a preacher deriving hitherto undiscovered eternal truths by hopscotching through a concordance as, Jennifer Rubin suggests in the Dobbs case, the court does through American history (Washington Post):
The right-wing court wants to lock 21st-century America into the Founders’ world or, at the latest, the late 19th century, conveniently skipping past the parts of history that disfavor its cramped view of individual rights. Women, minorities, gay people and others once had little political, economic or social power. And so they will again, if the court gets its way.
Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform famously declared his wish to roll back the 20th century to the Gilded Age of William McKinley. Not far enough, the court majority believes. In this, economic conservatives and cultural conservatives are in complete agreement. The Roberts court is their vehicle for fulfillment of that retrograde dream. They just slammed the country into reverse.
Because laws in 1868 deprived women of any control over their bodies, the majority approves States doing so today. Because those laws prevented women from charting the course of their own lives, the majority says States can do the same again. Because in 1868, the government could tell a pregnant woman — even in the first days of her pregnancy — that she could do nothing but bear a child, it can once more impose that command.
“This is a party of radicalism, of contempt for the modern America in which White males do not get to make all the rules,” Rubin continues. “It’s a view of democracy akin to right-wing authoritarian regimes where elections (sort of) are held but individual liberty and human rights have no guarantee, given few constraints on government power.”
“The D is for drive forward. The R is for reverse,” Jennifer Granholm told the Democrats’ convention in 2012. She wasn’t exaggerating.
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Request a copy of For The Win, 4th Edition, my free, countywide get-out-the-vote planning guide for county committees at ForTheWin.us. If in a position to Play to win in 2022 (see post first), contact tpostsully at gmail dot com
Help a progressive candidate who will fight for reproductive rights
Howie Klein issued this statement earlier today:
Immediately after the Roe v Wade decision was announced on Friday, Data for Progress released the poll below and Mike Pence– who has been treated as something of a media darling for not participating in the Trump coup– crowed that Roe v Wade has been “consigned to the ash heap of history…
[W]e must not rest and must not relent until the sanctity of life is restored to the center of American law in EVERY STATE IN THE LAND.”
There were similar messages from GOP elected officials, making it clear that they will never let up until abortion is criminalized in every state, regardless of what the voters want.
As of today, abortions are illegal in South Dakota, Louisiana, Kentucky and Missouri. It should be official and complete in Texas. Mississippi and Oklahoma in a matter of days. States with trigger bans that should go into effect almost immediately include Tennessee, Arkansas, North Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho and Utah, followed by Wisconsin, Alabama and West Virginia. Republicans in Arizona, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Ohio, Michigan and North Carolina are on the case.
Some of the Blue America-endorsed candidates shared their thoughts with us about this. I wish we could send every one of them a check to help their campaigns. Instead, though, I do want to send two of them $1,000 Blue America checks. You tell us which ones. Just contribute any amount to any of their campaigns and the two winners each get a check. One check will go to the candidate who gets the most contributions (one contribution per e-mail address) and the other candidate who gets the check will be the one who brings in the most money— so one is for lots of people and the other is for lots of cash. In theory, one candidate could win both checks, but that’s never happened before.
Oh, and don’t base it on how much you like them. Base your “vote” on their statement about the SCOTUS decision. I’m going to list the responses based on when they came in.
First in was Neal Walia, who is running in Denver.
Neal Walia (D-CO): “The time for virtue signals is over. Our rights are literally being taken from us. Roe V Wade falling is catastrophic. We can abolish the filibuster. We can expand the Supreme Court. We can stop taking money from corporations who actively fund anti-choice votes. We can ACT.”
Alan Grayson (D-FL): “The right to control one’s own body is the most fundamental right of all. No woman should ever be forced to carry and bear a child. To anyone who feels otherwise, I would ask, ‘what if you were raped and pregnant? Think about that.’ People should never interfere in someone else’s decision about whether to have a child. On the contrary, this invokes a bedrock principle of government and civilization: ‘Mind Your Own Business.’ The President should add abortion to the list of care that health insurers are required to provide (like preexisting conditions), and he should do it now.”
Mark Neumann (D-WI): “My great granny died of lockjaw, otherwise known as tetanus. She left three children without a mother in the care of a father who reportedly could not hold a job and was probably a mean drunk. After her death instruments were found in her bedroom that would have been used to induce an abortion. My great granny did not have quality reproductive healthcare available 100 years ago. I believe she tried her very best to find the way to raise her three kids and feed them. Who can dare to judge her choices? I wish I could have met her. I wish she could have had our current safe and competent abortion care that was unavailable to her in 1907. Reproductive healthcare decisions are the most consequential decisions any of us make in our lives. Who can possibly judge another person’s freedom to make those choices for their family? The power of the state commits sexual abuse when it violates a person’s body sovereignty and autonomy for reproductive choice. We as a community have a duty to make full scope, quality healthcare available to all women and trans people with pregnancy. Medicare for All!”
Lucas Kunce (D-MO): “As of this moment, abortion is no longer legal in the state of Missouri, even in cases of rape or incest. For nearly 50 years, Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land. And now, the Supreme Court has taken away the right to choose. This is a Big Brother attack on all of us, and we have to fight back. Congress must immediately end the filibuster and codify Roe v. Wade. If they won’t, then we must replace them. We all know who this decision will fall hardest on— working people and struggling families who are losing control over their own bodies and their economic opportunities. We cannot let this stand. We need to take our power back. When I am in the Senate, I will fight like hell to guarantee access to abortion for every Missourian.”
Tom Nelson (D-WI): “The decision is a dark day for this country, more so for Wisconsin. We are one of a handful of states that will make abortion a crime, the penalty of which is up to three years in jail for doctors. Republicans refuse to change the law. With guaranteed majorities for the next decade there will be no justice for women. The only relief will be through the Congress. The only way we get a working majority in the U.S. Senate is to win Wisconsin. And I am the candidate.”
Hank Linderman (D-KY): “And just like that, the historic precedent of Roe vs Wade was overturned. None of us should be surprised; opponents of women’s rights have been working towards this moment for 50 years. Credit where credit is due: a minority was able to overturn a Supreme Court decision through persistence, dedication, and unwillingness to compromise. And let’s also understand— there were steps that we Democrats could have taken to prevent this day, but those opportunities are gone, so let’s not waste any time on “woulda coulda shoulda.” Today and tomorrow are all we have, they are the only place we will find solutions. First, understand that we will win. It is just a matter of time. Next, get involved, to a level you haven’t been before. Get ready to vote, help others get ready to vote, talk with friends and neighbors, encourage them to join you at local county party meetings, help pro-choice candidates get elected. The easiest way to help is to contribute money or time to their efforts. The past is gone, but the future is unwritten. It only takes the courage of a determined few— including you— to make a big difference. Join us please.”
Brittany Ramos DeBarros (D-NY): “Today’s Supreme Court decision is a clear call to elect fighters who will protect our rights at all costs. Republicans have been clear on what they wanted and have worked systematically to get it. Democrats could and should have protected abortion and other rights legally, but they never bothered. This decision shows we can’t afford people in office who talk out of both sides of their mouths. We need leaders who understand and act on the urgency of what’s at stake. This decision is a barbaric attack on privacy, bodily autonomy, and reproductive rights. It attacks our access to healthcare. It literally puts our lives at risk from loss of prenatal care, and doctors’ fear of treating miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, loss of fetal viability, and other serious medical conditions. It attacks our ability to fully participate in work and society. While this decision is an attack on all of us, it will harm poor and working class communities of color the most. We must make New York a haven for anyone around the country seeking abortions. And fight to preserve our rights here, even as we work to expand them in the rest of the U.S.
Jason Call (D-WA): “The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is a victory of a radical right-wing minority which has hijacked this institution. This is an emergency, and it demands an emergency response that includes abolishing the filibuster, expanding the Supreme Court, and federally codifying the right to an abortion. Sadly, Washington’s Second Congressional District is currently represented by someone who opposes two of those three actions. Corporate-backed moderate Democratic Representative Rick Larsen does not support abolishing the filibuster and last year said Democrats should wait and ‘eventually we’ll come around and get our turn’ to appoint new judges to the Supreme Court. The fight against a rogue Supreme Court doesn’t stop at abortion rights. There have been disturbing roll backs of civil liberties, the separation of church and state, gun safety laws, and labor rights that underscore the urgent need to confront this ascendent tyrannical legal regime, many of whom brought us the disastrous Citizens United decision. Northwest Washington’s current representation is not up to this task, and still believes there is room to acquiesce to Republicans whose next step will assuredly be overturning marriage equality. This is not a political football or a fundraising opportunity. This is people’s lives.”
Melanie D’Arrigo (D-NY): “Today a corrupt SCOTUS sent a resounding message: extreme right wing ideology comes before decades of judicial precedent. Their decision to overturn Roe will directly result in states forcing birth upon residents without paid family leave, without proper healthcare and without universal childcare. With this decision, the United States has exposed a compromised court and has crossed the threshold into fascism. I have no doubt that women and birthing people will do what it takes to claw back power and restore abortion rights. But we will only be able to do that by electing leaders with the courage to fight the long battle ahead.”
Steven Holden (D-NY): “Earlier today I was at a rally in Seneca Falls, the birthplace of the Women’s Suffrage movement and a key community in our district, and I started to wonder who damped the progressive fire in Congress? We’ve known for weeks that Alito and his conservative henchmen were going to overturn Roe. The fight to make Roe v Wade the law of the land is being lost. That is a failure, no two ways about it. A failure that we cannot bear repeating. When I get to Congress, I will, without a doubt, stoke the flames of progress, never back down, and never ever shut up. Republicans are not a reasonable or competent choice for Government at any level and the time is long past to stop electing moderates to appease the mythical swing voter.”
In this process of life there are givers and there are bearers. Those that give do so in a moment of satisfaction and relief. They walk away, they put on their pants and that is the extent of their contribution to this process. Those that bear must completely change and sometimes risk their lives to bring a new life into this world. With my first pregnancy I went into pre-term labor twice, once at 24 weeks and once at 28 weeks. It was the most horrific experience I have ever felt in my life. During both pregnancies I lost employment. During my second pregnancy I lost my health insurance. Both of my children stayed home with me for the first two years because we could not afford daycare. I actually miscarried a year ago and I am still being billed for losing my child. Thank God that I have a strong support system. My husband and I chose to have children as an expression of our love and a continuation of our lineage. That is not the case for everyone. The decision to terminate a pregnancy is not a fun, easy or light decision. It is a traumatic and haunting decision. I know this because I’ve held the hands of women that have had to make that choice. Women are being raped. Women have no access to contraception. Women are not being taught about how their bodies work. You want to stop abortion, I want to prevent it too. But forcing a woman to give life when she does not want to is not the way to do it. No man, no religion and no government should have any jurisdiction over a woman’s body. It’s none of your business. The maternal mortality rate will increase. Post partum depression will increase. Welfare enrollment will increase. The best course of action that our government should have taken would be to provide women with the tools, the resources and the protection necessary to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Our focus as a country should be on compassion not control. If this government insists on forcing itself into a woman’s body, then you are no better than a rapist.
Sincerely,
Christine Olivo — The woman who is going expand the court and make you irrelevant.”
Let’s hope voters remember when they go to the polls in November but that same Data for Progress poll shows that 55% of voters say they would prefer to cast a ballot for someone who supports keeping Roe v Wade in place. Only 31% said they would prefer to vote for a candidate who backs overturning Roe, the majority of them Republicans.
This “contest” lasts until Wednesday night (9pm– in your time zone) Please vote for the candidatewho you think did the best job on a statement about the travesty the illegitimate Supreme Court slammed us with on Friday.
This Politico article suggests that donors and operatives are getting tired of Trump’s “shitshow” and that the hearings are taking a toll because Trump has no reasonable answer for them. That would explain why he sounds so lame at his rallies these days:
This is how you know these hearings have been effective. The only argument Trump has left is that the recorded depositions are fake. https://t.co/BrkEvnVJl7
“Ron DeSantis,” he said of the Florida governor, “is lying in wait, sharpening his knives.”
In some pockets of DeSantis land, these sentiments are shared. The governor’s advisers do not see the January 6 hearings as a “nail in the coffin” for Trump, but rather another in a line of distractions that are exhausting the sort of top-line Republican money that could be influential to a potential 2024 Trump-DeSantis primary clash.
“Trump is facing an important onslaught of negative facts with these hearings and there is no real defense.”
Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor.
“I think the January 6 hearings are continuation of the exhausting circus that surrounds Trump,” said a close DeSantis adviser granted anonymity to speak freely. “There are of course the lunchbox Republicans who think this is a ‘mass conspiracy,’ but among the donor class many are just tired of this.”
“It’s a shitshow,” the person continued. “Some donors are getting sick of the shitshow.”
Another Republican consultant familiar with DeSantis’ thinking says the governor views the Jan. 6 hearings as a way to eventually get Trump indicted.
“That’s where his head is at. He thinks the goal here is to get main justice to go after him,” the consultant said. “That’s what Ron thinks this is all about.”’
The person, however, stressed that DeSantis’ focus is much more on running up the score in his reelection bid. DeSantis, who is already on pace to break state-level Florida fundraising records and is seen as a heavy favorite to win reelection, wants to win by more than the 3.2 points Trump won the state by in 2020. POLITICO reported last week that DeSantis also has no interest in seeking Trump’s endorsement for his reelection bid, another signal he does not see his political fate tethered to the former president who helped make him.
“A five-point win, and I think he would be off to the races,” the person said. “January 6 or not, the fact that he [DeSantis] is not seeking Trump’s endorsement I think says everything you need to know.”
Somebody’s going to need some extra diet coke and french fries today. This is war.
The Supreme Court is not elected by the voters. A lot of people agree, though, that it’s important that the court maintains its legitimacy in the eyes of the public. After all, the court relies on others to enforce its own rulings.
The high court’s legitimacy in the public’s mind was already at very low levels, and that was before the overturning of Roe — something most Americans didn’t want.
Forty-one percent of voters approved of the job the Supreme Court was doing, according to a May Quinnipiac University poll. The majority (52%) disapproved. That was the highest disapproval rating recorded by Quinnipiac since it started asking about the court’s approval back in 2004.
The court’s standing is a reversal from where things were two years ago when 52% of voters approved and 37% disapproved in Quinnipiac polling.
Quinnipiac isn’t the only pollster to show a major degradation in the court’s standing. The percentage of Americans (25%) who have great or quite a lot of confidence in the court is at the lowest level ever recorded by Gallup since 1973.
The slide can primarily be attributed to Democrats. Today, 78% of Democrats disapprove of the job the court is doing, according to Quinnipiac. In 2020, just 43% did. Republican disapproval of the court has declined from 38% two years ago to 28% now.
The reason the public and Democrats have turned against the Supreme Court is pretty clear: It’s been seen as increasingly political and issuing decisions that aren’t popular.
The aforementioned Quinnipiac poll showed that a mere 34% of voters believed the court is mainly motivated by the law. Most (62%) felt that the Supreme Court is mainly motivated by politics. Four years ago, the split was far more even, with 50% believing the court was mainly motivated by politics and 42% saying it was mainly motivated by the law.
Again, this trend is driven by Democrats. Eighty-six percent of them told Quinnipiac the court is mainly motivated by politics. That’s up from 60% in 2018. Republicans who said the same had barely changed, from 46% in 2018 to 42% now.
It would be one thing if the court was seen as activist and making popular rulings. It’s not. Both the Gallup and Quinnipiac polls were taken after word leaked in May that the court was on the precipice of overturning Roe.
Americans agreed with the 1973 Roe ruling. A May NBC News poll found that 63% of them didn’t want Roe overturned. Indeed, every poll I know of has shown a clear majority of Americans in favor of Roe.
This has pretty much always been the case, going back to 1973, when 52% favored the decision in a poll by Louis Harris & Associates.
Indeed, I’m not sure I can recall another controversial and consequential Supreme Court decision that was this unpopular.
Polls found a split public when the court mostly upheld the Affordable Care Act in 2012.
A majority of Americans (54%) were in favor of the court stopping the hand recount in Florida that effectively ended the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, according to a CBS News poll at the time.
A majority (55%) also approved of the court’s decision to desegregate public schools in 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education.
One could argue that what the Supreme Court has done in overturning Roe is unprecedented from a public opinion point of view.
What effect it will ultimately have, however, is yet to be determined.
One potential impact of the Supreme Court’s latest ruling is that it could make people more likely to turn out to vote — in a cycle that is already seeing really high turnout.
In other words, we could be looking at a second consecutive midterm with record turnout.
Through Tuesday, turnout in primaries is up 13% in the states that have voted so far compared with this point in 2018. (This does not include states where statewide turnout by party was unavailable for either 2018 or 2022.)
The 2018 turnout, itself, was up from both 2014 and 2010. In fact, 2018 had the highest midterm turnout — as a percentage of the voting-eligible population — in more than a century.
The high primary turnout shouldn’t be surprising given what we saw in Virginia last year or in the polling so far this cycle. The competitive 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election had the highest turnout for an off-year election in the commonwealth since at least the mid-1990s.
Further, more voters are extremely enthusiastic about voting this year than in either 2010 or 2014, according to CNN/SSRS polling. And that extreme enthusiasm matches how voters felt at this point in 2018.
Under a slightly different metric, ABC News/Washington Post polling has found more voters saying at this point in the midterm cycle that they’re certain to vote in November than at similar points in the 2010, 2014 or 2018 cycles.
I should point out that under all these turnout metrics, Republicans have been doing better than Democrats. Turnout is up 28% in Republican primaries from 2018, while it is down 2% in Democratic primaries. Republicans are more enthusiastic and certain to turn out than Democrats, according to the polls.
The fall of Roe could alter that dynamic, at least a little bit. A majority of Democrats (55%) said in a May Kaiser Family Foundation poll that they would be more motivated to turn out in the midterms if Roe were overturned. Only 23% of Republicans said the same.
Put another way, the overturning of Roe means we might not only be looking at record Republican turnout come November. Democrats may end up not being too far behind.
Nate Silver, the very pompous data cruncher who seems to think that anyone who earnestly cares about politics is a bit of a fool has this to say:
Yes, Roe has electoral implications. Major, unpopular policy changes get punished by the electorate. This is Politics 101. Enough to stop the GOP from winning the midterms? Probably not but it makes it less certain or may decrease their margins.
Woman at Trump rally is asked his biggest accomplishment in office: “Um … oh gosh … helping the military … um, and allowing more prayer.” pic.twitter.com/IqORZp4tzr
I always wonder what it is that everyone thinks Trump accomplished besides stacking the Supreme Court with extremists and tax cust for the rich and nobody every really says. Sometimes they say, “he made everyone respect us again, which is so delusional I can’t believe even the most hardcore cultists are serious when they say it.
But I came across this list allegedly prepared by Sean Hannity the other day which lays them out. I think it must have been compiled before Kavanaugh and Barrett.:
He rolled back everything attributed to Obama that he could, he”drafted plans” created task forces and commissions, took trips abroad, and some other normal perfunctory duties. But really, the only signature accomplishments were packing the courts and the tax cuts for the wealthy, both of which would have been done by any GOP president. (And it’s interesting that a list prepared by Hannity put those tax cuts near the bottom of the list…)
Needing to be at the center of attention every minute of the day, he spent his term causing chaos and scandal and turning the country into a joke around the world. Apparently, his followers consider that to be the job of president. I suspect they will be disappointed going forward if Trump’s successors don’t live up to his standards.
Illinois Republican Mary Miller told a crowd at a rally held alongside former president Donald Trump that the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade was a “victory for white life”.
“President Trump, on behalf of all the Maga patriots in America, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the supreme court yesterday,” she said, drawing cheers from the crowd in Illinois…
Miller’s spokesperson said the Illinois Republican had intended to say the decision was a victory for a “right to life”.
Of course, that’s what she meant! It was just a slip, that’s all!! She’d never openly suggest that Republican policies are intended to benefit only white people.
Wait a minute…
The freshman congresswoman, who was among those who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election, has previously come under criticism for quoting Adolf Hitler.
“Hitler was right on one thing. He said, ‘Whoever has the youth has the future,’” Miller said in a speech last year, according to video posted by WCIA-TV.
That, too, was clearly a slip of the tongue. Of course, it was. She certainly wasn’t suggesting that Republicans should openly emulate Hitler. She’d never suggest such a thing. Not openly.
from a comrade: “Not to be controversial but I think white women and all middle class and even rich women and anyone with a uterus is going to suffer…Weird that we’re means testing sympathy instead of trying to build solidarity between everyone this will affect.” —Originally tweeted by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò (@OlufemiOTaiwo) on June 26, 2022.
Rebecca Traister said it all a few weeks ago. She points out that it’s absolutely true that rich women, mostly white, will be able to obtain abortions no matter what. But this issue is about even more than that:
There are a lot of very good reasons to point out the structural inequities that indeed make restrictions on reproductive-health care racist and particularly punishing for the poor. Abortion bans, as Warren says, hurt “the most vulnerable among us,” a statement that is rooted in extremely correct racial and class analysis. It perfectly sums up the circumstances of the past 40 years, when the Hyde Amendment and state restrictions made abortion all but inaccessible to many poor, Black, brown, immigrant, and Indigenous communities while middle-class white people could feel assured about the umbrella protection of Roe...
There is also an understandable desire among advocates for abortion access to convey a crucial and salient reality: that people of all classes will continue to get abortions, just as they have always gotten abortions throughout history when the procedures were both legal and illegal. And that’s important to know, to make clear, that the reasoning behind abortion bans is a lie. Bans do not stop abortions from happening. Rather, they are meant to punish people for asserting control over their bodies, lives, and families, and the people who get punished more cruelly and regularly in this country have always been people who are not white and not wealthy. The drive to make this point is also a reminder that white, privileged women’s experiences are not at the center of this ongoing injustice.
But as we teeter on the threshold of the post-Roe world, it’s worth considering that the message that privileged women will be just fine is inaccurate and that its repetition, while well meaning, is counterproductive to the task of readying an unprepared public for massive and terrifying shifts on the horizon. It’s worth pointing out that it is simply not true that the reproductive options of white, middle-class, and even wealthy people are going to remain the same. Because while circumstances will certainly be graver and more perilous for the already vulnerable, the reality is that everything is about to change, for everyone, in one way or another, and to muffle that alarm is an error, factually, practically, and politically.
The question before us is not only about who can get safe abortion care. The fear arising from recollections of a world before Roe centered on the ability to access surgical procedures, many of which were performed at great risk to the bodies and fertility of those people who sought them out. Access to abortion providers will certainly be a part of the future picture, and many will need to travel across state lines in order to see those medical professionals. A post-Roe future will also certainly involve some people seeking abortion turning to dangerous self-remedies that will result in injury and death. But we are not going to make a full return to the era of back alleys and women bleeding out on motel-room floors.
Today, unlike in the early 1970s, we have mifepristone and misoprostol, pills that are available by mail and are safe and effective in inducing abortions, which are then indistinguishable from miscarriages. Lots of people in lots of places can end their pregnancies in medically safe ways that do not entail dirty coat hangers. However, now that there are widespread means of delivering abortifacients, anti-abortion crusaders are intent on criminalizing their use. Which means the frightening new questions are not simply about access but about whether people who take these pills, or the people who provide them, will be prosecuted, fined, and put in jail for doing so. In any criminal-justice context, it is true that people of color and poor people will still suffer more, but do not underestimate anger at abortion seekers of all races — including white women of privilege — who attempt to assert independence and reproductive autonomy.
For the really rich, it is true: Traveling to get an abortion and evading prosecution will more or less be a cinch. But the chasm between really rich and everyone else gets deeper every day, and it is simply not true that a suburban white mom of three in Missouri or the teenage daughter of well-off Christian conservatives in Alabama will be in a position to get the abortion she needs when she needs it with ease and without risk to herself, her family, or the people willing to help her. Even crossing to another state to obtain an abortion may entail legal jeopardy as states consider various means to prohibit and criminalize abortion travel.
It’s going to be a shock. Precisely because of racial and class disparities in every area of American life, white middle-class women are used to having certain kinds of systemic support: hospitals where they can feel cared for, responsive physicians. Those supports can no longer be taken for granted. To consider even the most cynical caricature of white middle-class womanhood, the Karens who are used to calling the manager when they have a complaint, the reality is going to be that, in many places, there will no longer be a manager to call. And if there is, he might report you to authorities. The choices that people, even people of means, make about how to end pregnancies are going to require calculations they have rarely had to do before: about their own risks of criminal prosecution and about state-enforced systems that are there not to work on their behalf but to limit and punish their choices.
And don’t be fooled: While scrutiny will be sharpest on poor and Black and brown people, women and people with uteruses of every race are going to be questioned not only about their unintended pregnancies but about the miscarriages of their wanted pregnancies. In states where post-Roe trigger bans begin at conception, various forms of birth control — including IUDs — could be considered abortifacients, and there will be strenuous attempts to make them inaccessible or illegal. For similar reasons, people undergoing IVF treatments may find that their embryos have been granted rights they did not previously have.
Those who live in states with fewer restrictions, even in states that have wisely strengthened protections in recent years, will certainly have an easier time. But their circumstances will be changed too, by the influx of patients from other parts of the country. Wait times and, with them, pressures on viability limits will increase. Moreover, resting easy on the idea of a patchwork of safer states assumes Republicans will not find a way to enact a federal legislative ban. For years, I’ve been told that will never happen. For years, I’d also been told that Roe would never fall.
In time, abortion’s illegality is going to affect everyone: you, your friends, your loved ones, your community, your kids, and your parents. It’s going to affect you if you or someone you know wants an abortion, and it’s frankly going to affect you even if you don’t.
And however well intentioned or important it is to acknowledge the decades of disproportionate and destructive damage abortion restrictions under Roe have done to poor families of color, the recent mainstream emphasis on the notion that some Americans will come out of the end of Roe unscathed is a strategic mistake.
If these past years with COVID have taught us anything, it’s that if you tell middle-class white people that they will be fine, they will not give a rat’s ass about anyone else. And so this message, intended to engender empathy and provoke action and commitment, may instead have been an anesthetizing one. It may have permitted middle-class white people, with their significant political clout, to sleepwalk comfortably — as they have through all of Roe’s existence — into the waiting jaws of illegality.
Everyone has a stake in this one. It is not just an individual or particular class problem. They are legally taking away constitutional rights now. They are institutionally attacking freedom. It’s happening right before our eyes.
Job one is to get the largest coalition possible to recognize this threat to the freedoms we’ve taken for granted and act on it. The only way we can save ourselves is with solidarity among as many people as possible. Infighting, recriminations and exclusion is a mistake.
“The news coming out of the United States is horrific”
“When there are so many issues to tackle, so many challenges that face women and girls, we need progress, not to fight the same fights and move backwards,” said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe:
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said on Twitter that he was “very concerned about implications of U.S. Supreme Court decision…and the signal it sends to the world.”
“I’ve got to tell you, I think it’s a big step backwards,” said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at a summit of Commonwealth leaders in Rwanda (CNN):
“The news coming out of the United States is horrific,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday. “My heart goes out to the millions of American women who are now set to lose their legal right to an abortion. I can’t imagine the fear and anger you are feeling right now.”
“No government, politician, or man should tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body. I want women in Canada to know that we will always stand up for your right to choose,” he added.
French President Emmanuel Macron also expressed “solidarity” with women in the US, and called abortion a “fundamental right for all women” soon after his Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna called the decision “appalling.”
And Spanish leader Pedro Sánchez said in a tweet: “We cannot take any right for granted. Social achievements are always at risk of going backwards and their defense has to be our day to day. Women must be able to decide freely about their lives.”
One of the darkest days for women’s rights in my lifetime. Obviously the immediate consequences will be suffered by women in the US – but this will embolden anti-abortion & anti-women forces in other countries too. Solidarity doesn’t feel enough right now – but it is necessary. https://t.co/T1656BPQuL
I’m concerned and disappointed with the overturning of #RoeVsWade. It’s both reducing women’s rights and access to health care. https://t.co/pGuR79G8xr
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) June 24, 2022
And we thought ousting Donald Trump would begin to repair our international image.
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The through line to last week’s Supreme Court decisions on guns and abortion is a deep and enduring antipathy by our flag-waving neighbors to the very idea of the United States itself. The word democracy may appear nowhere in the Declaration or the Constitution, but decision-making by voting appears throughout the latter. While not a direct democracy, the republic rests on the elected representatives making decisions by a majority. Indeed, the court’s decisions last week were decided by the votes of a majority of justices.
Yet since the time of the Roe v. Wade decision the right has carefully, meticulously engineered a democracy in form but not in substance. As Naomi Klein so shrewdly observed, those holding enough power and unpopular views find democracy inconvenient. No matter if the public rejects their radical, even royalist opinions. Or in the case of white Christian nationalists, dominionist ones. The right thumbs applied to the scales can “democratically” veto popular sentiment.
The tyranny of the majority was not the sole of the framers’ concerns, but the tyranny of the minority as well. Giving small states “equal weight in the scale of power” ran counter to justice and common sense, Alexander Hamilton wrote. He believed “the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail.” Perhaps a third of our neighbors do not accept that premise and never have. No matter, movement conservatives reasoned after Barry Goldwater’s campaign for president faced overwhelming majority opposition. With enough money, time and tenacity, the minority might bring the majority to heel.
Hamilton’s nightmare has become the reality of 21st-century America. We are living under minoritarian tyranny, with smaller states imposing their views on the larger through their disproportionate sway in the Senate and the electoral college — and therefore on the Supreme Court. To take but one example: Twenty-one states with fewer total people than California have 42 Senate seats. This undemocratic, unjust system has produced the new Supreme Court rulings on gun control and abortion.
These are issues on which public opinion is lopsidedly in favor on what, for want of a better word, we might call the “liberal” side. Following the Uvalde, Tex., shooting, a recent poll showed that 65 percent of Americans want stricter gun controls; only 28 percent are opposed. Public opinion is just as clear on abortion: Fifty-four percent of Americans want to preserve Roe v. Wade and only 28 percent want to overturn it. Fifty-eight percent want abortion to be legal in most or all cases.
Yet the Supreme Court’s hard-right majority just overruled a New York law that made it difficult to get a permit to carry a gun, while upholding a Mississippi law that banned all abortions after 15 weeks. This represents a dramatic expansion of gun rights and an equally dramatic curtailment of abortion rights.
The court has already disabled voting protections in the Voting Rights Act, allowed the “speech” of the few with the most money to drown out the voices of the majority, and taken a pass on whether state partisans might legally rig congressional districts to ensure a minority of voters control a majority of the House seats. State legislative seats as well.
Public faith in the Supreme Court is down to a historic low of 25 percent, and there’s a good reason why it keeps eroding. We are experiencing what the Founders feared: a crisis of governmental legitimacy brought about by minoritarian tyranny. And it could soon get a whole lot worse. In his concurring opinion in the abortion case, Justice Clarence Thomas called on the court to overturn popular precedents upholding a right to contraception, same-sex relationships and marriage equality. So much for Hamilton’s hope that “the sense of the majority should prevail.”
This country was founded, with all its flaws, when colonists rejected elite rule by hereditary royalty and landed gentry. The right’s decades-long program to abuse democracy to neuter democracy is on the verge of restoring rule by the very people the founders opposed.
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In calling for total bans on abortion, and in dusting off the trigger laws, Republicans are signaling they are willing to pay a political price for the unpopular policy they’re seeking to impose, but it’s not automatic that they’ll actually pay it. This is where Democrats need to focus. To obtain that political price from Republicans— and to win the elections they will need to win to protect and restore abortion rights — Democrats will need to make a counter-offer: set up favorable comparisons, where voters see a broadly popular policy offering from Democrats compared to the extreme, unpopular one from Republicans.
If Democrats offer proposals and rhetoric that are easily framed as similarly extreme, that’s tantamount to allowing Republicans to win the policy fight and suffer few consequences at the ballot box along the way.
There are a few prongs of that fight I want to discuss.
As I’ve written before, Democrats should use the floor of Congress while they still hold both houses. Now. Not in November.1
After the draft decision leaked, Democrats brought a wish-list bill to the floor of both chambers that even pro-choice Republicans — even Sen. Susan Collins — were able to comfortably vote against on the grounds that it was too extreme, more expansive than Casey. Democrats need to break the agenda into pieces. As soon as possible, force Republicans to vote on matters like:
a federal right to abortion in the first trimester,
a federal right to abortion in cases of rape and incest,
a federal prohibition on criminal penalties for women who seek or obtain abortions, and
a federal prohibition on criminal penalties for non-providers who assist women in seeking or obtaining abortions.
I’ve written this myself. Put the individual issues on the floor not some big vote that just says “Are you pro-choice/pro-Roe or not?” and leave it at that. We know the Republicans call themselves “pro-life” and are anti-Roe. It’s amorphous. I’d go further than his list and make them be specific about whether they expect women to inform men of their pregnancies, whether they think pregnant women should be allowed to cross state lines to obtain abortions in other states, whether they will spend money for health care and child welfare now that they are forcing millions of women to give birth against their will. Should vigilantes be allowed to chase them down and sue anyone who “turns them in?” Is it ok if women obtain abortion medication through the mail? Should the government be allowed to track women’s pregnancies though their internet and social media habits? All that stuff is on the table in various states.
Make them own the fucking details of this monstrous philosophy they so cavalierly support. Because if they vote one way on these issues their base will rebel and if they go the other way the Democrats can hammer them with their unpopular stances in the elections.
Barro continues:
This is not anywhere close to an exhaustive list. Unlike a catch-all bill, there are many individual ideas about protecting abortion rights that are very broadly popular — bringing them to the floor puts Republicans in the position of either voting for policies to protect abortion rights, or going home to defend votes that are actually hard to defend in election campaigns.
On issues where the Democratic position is popular even in red states, such as minimum wage and Medicaid expansion, liberal groups have gone directly to voters for approval in states where that is possible. And they have had significant success: In part because of referendum campaigns, 30 states have minimum wages higher than the federal minimum wage, and 38 states have expanded Medicaid, despite widespread opposition from Republican lawmakers.
Replicating this success on abortion rights is going to require a significant degree of pragmatism and flexibility. There are some states where a measure that codifies rights similar to those created by Roe and Casey could win — one passed in Nevada all the way back in 1990, and you might pass something similar in, say, Arizona — but in more solidly red states, it will be more prudent to advance a more limited proposal, such as creating a state constitutional right to abortion only in the first trimester.
Of course, abortion can and should also be an issue in campaigns for state-level elective office, including where referenda are not possible or practical. I don’t think Democrats should be overconfident about abortion carrying them to victory in races for governor, legislature, and state courts — abortion is one of many issues voters care about, and even states that have pro-choice majorities will not always break their way, especially in the political environment that prevails this year. Few voters tell pollsters abortion is the most important issue for determining their votes. But, again, Republicans are running on extreme abortion policies in many states, and Democratic candidates will be able to use that fact to their electoral advantage — so long as their own agendas are more in line with the state’s median voter’s view on abortion.
A few weeks ago, explaining why he wasn’t bringing more limited abortion rights legislation to the floor of the Senate that could get the votes of some Republicans like Collins and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said: “We are not looking to compromise something as vital as this.”
Well, there is no Roe left to compromise about. It’s gone, and positioning yourself as above half-measures is a way to end up with nothing. During the long fight for gay rights legislation, advocates (at least until recently) avoided being arrogant — they assessed what was possible with public opinion and coalitional support as it was, and they took half-measure after half-measure on the way to a near-total victory that was made possible by changed minds. Something similar is going to be necessary on abortion.
Sadly, he’s right. There is no Roe. It’s gone. Nobody should give up their belief that women’s rights to bodily autonomy are fundamental. There’s no need to go out and defend “states’ rights” or be dismissive of the fundamental principles involved. That goes without saying. And we can push the envelope wherever we can in places where it’s possible. But this issue has always been complicated, even under Roe, which had a million exceptions and caveats and compromises. That’s not going to change. But as he says, we are going to have to move forward with imagination and flexibility in order to save the lives and futures of women in this country.
So yes, we need to elect Democrats which, for better or worse, is the only hope of passing laws and regulations that will mitigate this disaster. But it’s going to take a long-term concerted effort from all directions to actually fix this problem — and stop them from doing even more damage.
