So, what’s my opinion about abortion? Well, I’ll tell you what. It doesn’t matter. First, I have no intention to do any more reproduction. Second, as romantically involved as I’d love to become, I’m afraid I’ve forgotten how. And most important, the only people, whose opinions do matter, are pregnant women, and then, only insofar as their own bodies are concerned. However, I will share the opinion that a woman’s right to choose is under assault by the Republican Party like never before.
Abortion is still technically legal in America, but more than 19 million U.S. women live in areas with less than one health center or provider for every 1,000 women in need. This is largely because clinics have been hindered by Targeted restrictions on abortion providers (TRAP), which limit abortion access by forcing clinics to comply with absurd rules that are cumbersome and medically unnecessary. This obvious targeting of abortion providers, which has undoubtedly contributed to 275 abortion clinics closing since 2013, begs the question: If the constitution really does protect a woman’s right to choose, how can lawmakers get away with these blatant attacks on choice?
The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which affirmed a woman’s right to choose, is often referred to as “the law of the land.” However, it’s actually a Supreme Court decision, not a law, and that distinction is incredibly important. As Trump politicizes the court with his promise to appoint anti-Roe justices, the ruling is vulnerable. As writer Megan McArdle put it, “what the Supreme Court gives, the Supreme Court can take away.” To make matters worse, Roe is already built on shaky ground. The 1965 case Griswold v. Connecticut, which provided the precedent for Roe, concluded that bans on using contraception are unconstitutional because of a right to privacy, as implied by an amalgamation of constitutional amendments. For Roe v. Wade, the justices decided that if the right to privacy supports the right to contraception, it should apply to abortion as well. As journalist Adam Liptak describes on The Daily, Roe’s lawyers believed it was too soon to argue for reproductive rights on the basis of equality, forcing their argument to rest, instead, on a right that isn’t explicitly stated in the Constitution. Ironically, the argument that won Roe v. Wade also made the decision especially precarious.
Roe came under further attack in the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, which allowed states to regulate abortion before viability with one stipulation: these regulations can’t place “undue burden” on the woman. Unfortunately, the decision fails to define what “undue burden” means, allowing legal wiggle room for the TRAP laws of today. Anti-choice activists have capitalized on this vulnerability by using the loopholes created in Casey to pass legislation that has limited clinics or forced them to close by imposing ridiculous requirements on them. Take, for example, the last abortion clinic in Missouri, which is currently hanging on by a thread because the state government refuses to renew its licensing. The intention of these laws is ultimately to have them challenged in the courts until a case reaches the Supreme Court, presenting the justices with a clear opportunity to overturn Roe.
If the U.S. wants to truly solidify the right to an abortion, therefore, we have to codify Roe as the actual law of the land. This would protect the right to choose from the shifting politics of the Supreme Court and severely limit a state’s ability to restrict abortion. It would also move repealing Roe into the hands of Congress and an electorate where 77% of people oppose overturning Roe…
Inserted from <Women’s Media Center>
Please click through for the rest of this fine article.
Rachel Maddow covered this issue in three segments. In the first, she covers the history of Republican hate and violence against abortion.
Violence, Threats Have Marked Anti-Abortion Protest Since Day One
In the second, she covers the TRAP laws Republicans are currently using in their war on women.
Abortion Clinics Face Down Myriad Pressures To Remain Open
She closes with a dire warning!
Trump/McConnell Supreme Court Poses New Threat To Roe V. Wade
The Republican Reich must be stopped before THIS happens AGAIN!
RESIST!!
9 Responses to “Protecting Roe”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
The latest that I saw, from Ohio, is a clause in the law that a physician will be liable to be charged with “abortion murder” for failing to “re-implant” an ectopic pregnancy. Simply put, this is impossible, because, when an ectopic pregnancy occurs, the uterus has not produced the network of blood vessels required to support an embryo. Even assuming the doctor could find the embryo, remove it from where it is (usually a Fallopian tube) and insert it into the uterus, getting it to stay would be like trying to attach a 500 pound weight to drywall with Elmer’s School Glue.
There is, of course, a legal defense for this – “non est producendum unicornis” – literally “One cannot produce a unicorn,” more mundanely ” one cannot do the impossible. But I don’t doubt, if they can get this passed, they can torture a fair number of women and doctors (and likely kill some women) before it can be thrown out.
Rachel – You know how it is with Saturdays and operas. I had to come back to listen – don’t want to miss Rachel. I learn so much from her – even (or especially) about events I have lived through.
The third trimester is where you get the conditions which are the most directly threatening to women’s lives – like dead fetuses which can turn septinc and poison the mother. So of course those are the ones that misogynists most want to prevent. The myth of aborting full-ter living babies in the third trimester is powerful to people who call themselves “pro-life” but whom I can barely stand to call “these people.” And like every other powerful right wing myth, it’s a lie.
Gawd, this is so sad. This (obviously) will continue to escalate in violence, for those who decide to have an abortion, and for the doctors and staff too, to protect that person coming in and leaving the clinic.
Texas is horrible.
I find the choice to this…a very personal decision by the woman, and her family (if she so chooses). I know that I, personally…don’t have the moral decision or right to make.. or being a person to rule or make the decision for them, and to be the judge & jury for this very personal choice.
It’s their private choice, and I honor their unanimity.
Thanks, Tom for posting.
I knew the history of abortion in the US was bad, but never that it was this bad. I picked up on the killing of doctors and medical personnel working in abortion clinics but never realized that there were so many good people killed for performing a procedure they believed pregnant women have the right to chose to have done. I can’t push my disgust at the killings far enough away to professionally analyse the killer’s reasoning. Nothing elevates their motivation beyond brainwashed, delusional and downright psychopathic.
The long current Republican trend to take away the right to chose away from women, however, has no such excuse. While it leans strongly on individuals with psychopathic tendencies for the execution of their anti-abortion war, for the mostly white male Republicans it is a political power game based on misogyny and the fear of losing domination over women. It is part of their overall hateful politics and they only use anti-abortion war because it is easy to emotionally involve a certain part of their followers, not because every American is against abortion. Polls repeatedly show public support for legal abortion remains as high as it has been in two decades of polling. Currently, 61% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 38% say it should be illegal in all or most cases. But Republicans know how to rile up emotions with that 38%, the same as they do for gun control.
Note to Rep. John Becker – author of Ohio HB182 demanding reimplantation of ectopic pregnancies:
As a physician I see you have been repeatedly informed that reimplantation of an ectopic pregnancy is medically IMPOSSIBLE. This makes your bill BOTH bad medicine AND bad legislating.
So to expand your pitiful medical knowledge:
It’s really a shame to see how women’s rights continue to be taken away especially with a serious matter like this.
I understand that the Roe verses Wade decision was being challenged many years ago by other heartless repugs. I feel that ever since tRump has set foot into the W.H. it has gotten even worse.
What are women who medically need to have an abortion, due to saving their own life, suppose to do, just die??? If that’s the way our country is going, it’s totally wrong.
Women should have the right to make their own choices. Not anyone else.
Thanks TomCat
Actually, Republicans do expect such women to die. According to them, the fetus gas the right to life until delivered. The women’s right to life ended at their own births.
Thanks, Hugs and Amen to all!
Public opinion changed in the 50-70’s. After birth control, R/W the church & moralists anti-choice rabid provide unremitting yammering after R/W established choice. Shucks, some started yammering after birth-control & Scopes monkey trial.
Pre R/W we had the citizen v. moralists anti abortion & birth control, big church & rabid moralists.
Citizens require reproductive choice, family planing & guaranteed freedom to make decisions. Intractable moralists (values) would have no part of that. They knew better! 🙂
So we took court got R/W and choice decision. Moralists did it to themselves. R/W stands a fair decision and settled issue. Involved parties, patient and doctor get choice. A personal choice. Maybe not everybody’s choice. Moralists or not we now have choice.
Modern industrialized society recognizes necessity of family planning, birth control and women’s freedom to make reproductive choices without interference from others.
There are some rabid intermeddlers wishing to do away with/or curtail the use of birth control and abortion. Can we say ‘choice’?
Some sniveling dastards afraid/ashamed to admit the ‘Hobby-Lobby’ & ‘Hyde amendment’ is religion/moralists interference. The law is a ‘not that well hidden attempt to force their reproductive beliefs on others’.
We willingly pay for chemical-weapons, torture, bribes, high dollar hookers for congress critters, black sites, bio-weapons, capital punishment, drug war, mass incarceration, death, destruction etc.. yet abortion/birth control is a bridge too far.
“I will not insist you have an abortion if you do not insist I carry to term.”R. Swartz 2000
Welcome Ringo!
I fully agree!