It
was only a coincidence, but a fitting one just the same. This past week, I’ve been bingeing The
Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu. Absently scrolling
through my newsfeed as I watched, one headline caught my eye. The U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari
in a case involving a Mississippi statute banning abortion after the first
fifteen weeks of pregnancy.
While
such a story is troubling under normal circumstances, the ideological shift of
the federal judiciary to the right during the Trump administration provokes
outright angst. Before 2017, any ruling
re Roe v. Wade was tempered by a reluctance to overturn it
outright. For instance, when Chief
Justice John Roberts was undergoing his confirmation hearings in 2005 he noted
that Roe was settled law.
But
perhaps not for much longer. The influx
of right-leaning judges into the federal courts, together with the new
conservative SCOTUS supermajority, puts that into question. A president’s lasting legacy are his judicial
appointments. In that sense, Donald
Trump has created a threat to hard-won rights that will persist years after his
tenure at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
The
world of The Handmaid’s Tale is a funhouse mirror version of a
right-wing utopia. More to the point,
it’s a reflection of present-day phenomena which, on a slippery slope, might
result in something like it.
Life
in the postrevolutionary theocracy of Gilead is chockfull of slightly tweaked
aspects of daily American life in 2021.
We have militarized law enforcement and omniscient public surveillance. There is a growing tolerance of officially
meted punishment in the guise of justice, with “othered” minorities
particularly singled out. Politicized
evangelicals influencing public policy. Propaganda
and misinformation substituted for news.
The
series was especially prescient with Gilead’s backstory. In the series universe, a terrorist attack
against the White House and U.S. Capitol led to rule by decree by a cabal of
religious fanatics. The Great Redneck Riot of January Sixth was an eerie
evocation of an otherwise unthinkable event.
(Imagine what could have happened if the rioters had been organized…and planned ahead.)
The
rest of the quasi-fictional nightmare could be made more real through the law
courts. Central to the narrative of The
Handmaid’s Tale is an unspecified environmental disaster affecting
fertility rates. Women who could still
conceive were rendered as property, stripped of their old identities and forced
into reproductive servitude to the male “commanders” who govern Gilead. Although The Handmaid’s Tale is
speculative fiction, it is also food for thought in the face of a gradual erosion
of the personal rights gained by women over the past century.
Concerning
the pending abortion case, an outright overturning of Roe v. Wade seems
attainable for the first time. SCOTUS
has bounded and further refined the legal protections afforded by Roe,
but until now they remained comparatively slight. No longer.
Although
it has no direct legal bearing on how the case is argued and decided, public
opinion’s effect on politics cannot be ignored.
Over time I’ve detected a worrisome trend among my students,
particularly the working class white males.
They are quite forward with their anti-abortion stance and their taste
for authoritarian policies. I think I
know why. Populist conservatism’s appeal
stems from the feeling that the economic immiseration of white workers and
America’s supposed loss of greatness is the result of our abandoning
traditional values. Traditional values
which privilege men and subordinate women and people of color. Things will get better if we just turn back
the calendar. After all, that’s what
Jesus wants, right?
The
three most recently appointed justices were chosen with right-wing policy objectives
in mind. The views of Justices Gorsuch,
Kavanaugh, and Barrett are no secret.
The touchstone issue, the long-running litmus test for the conservative
base, is abortion. This in turn is prompted by a retrograde worldview informed
by evangelical Christian tenets. Taken
literally, biblical law affirms ideas which privilege some and abuse
many.
Here
is what is at stake. Several states have
enacted six-week abortion bans; a few more have passed bills imposing an
outright ban in anticipation of Roe being overturned. Should the Mississippi law be upheld, as it
very well may, then we have taken the first step in rolling back equal rights
for women. We all must ask ourselves if
this is the kind of society we want to live in.
If
you want a nightmare vision of what that society may end up looking like if
present trends persist, watch The Handmaid’s Tale.
©
2021 The Unassuming Scholar
