Backsliding

Everyone knew it was coming, of course.  That didn’t make the news any easier to accept. 

The U.S. Supreme Court has formally handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, nearly two months after Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion was leaked to the public.  The resulting backlash notwithstanding, it appears the final draft is identical or nearly so to the preview.  There is no longer a nationally recognized right to abortion.  

The extent to which a woman enjoys reproductive freedom now depends upon the state where she lives.  In my own state, little or nothing will change in the wake of Dobbs.  There has been talk of making our state a sanctuary for women seeking safe terminations.  But even then, measures elsewhere such as the Texas snitch law may thwart this particular haven unless the woman doesn’t return home. 

Emboldened by their right-wing supermajority, there is already talk of harsher actions to come.  Clarence Thomas has publicly said it may be time to consider limiting access to contraception. Rights such as same-sex marriage may also be at risk now that SCOTUS has issued a total reversal of what was once considered settled law. 

Despite having won, the right is nevertheless taking refuge in their perennial claims of persecution by a malevolent “woke” left.  Congressional wingnuts are already conjuring specters of a violent backlash to further entrench the hysterical tendencies of the base.  Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah (where else?) warned of a potential “constitutional crisis” resulting from a rumored “invasion” of the Supreme Court by the “pro-abortion left.”  (Sorry, Mikey, inciting mob violence is your party’s brand.)  

The decades-long assault on reproductive rights is deeply disturbing to me on a visceral level.  This may read counterintuitively considering men can’t get pregnant (except in emojis).  But the two things I value most are my privacy and my autonomy.  If I insist upon these for myself, then it is only right that I want them for you as well.  Anti-abortion and anti-contraceptive policies limit privacy and autonomy for women of childbearing age, and that is wrong.  

Dobbs is a landmark on the backsliding route our country is traveling.  It is also a warning.  We have arrived at a place where a moderate majority are increasingly subjected to the superstitious fanaticism of right-wing leaders and their legions of scruffy devotees.  It’s sickeningly awful to witness them fouling our nest while our freedoms erode and life in America becomes harder to bear.  We face more grim days such as this.  The darkness is gathering fast.

 

© 2022 The Unassuming Scholar

New Old Habits

Summer sessions starts on Monday, after a three-week hiatus from work.  Part of me is looking forward to returning to the classroom.  Part of me dreads it. 

I know I’ll be okay once things are going.  But in the days leading up to summer orientation earlier this week I began to feel anxious about leaving the house.  You see, I had not left at any point during the three weeks except to get the mail and take out the trash.  

This had a familiar feel to it.  During the pandemic’s worst phase, I went four and a half months alone at home. I am not exaggerating.  I opened my door only to accept deliveries and to let in technicians from my internet service provider.  My first venture out was to get my first dose of the vaccine (but only after calling AAA to jump start the car I hadn’t driven all winter). 

Fall and spring semesters were partly live and went well. But during the winter break I holed up at home once more and went nowhere ever, reverting to having my necessities brought to me.  I am beginning to suspect the past couple of years have taken a greater toll on my sense of wellbeing than I previously believed.  These days, I do not return home so much as I flee there. 

Some of this is caution.  In spite of being vaxxed and double boosted, and in spite of weekly PCR tests during the school year (all negative!), I don’t want to be infected.  Some of this I can attribute to the breakdown in social norms since the pandemic hit.  It appears to me that the shameless ratfuckery of the Trump years has emboldened every unhinged crank and basement dweller in the country to act out.  The absence of accountability and consequences for their flagrant public misbehavior bodes ill for the common good.  I just don’t want to engage. 

Before the plague arrived, I was only home 24/7 on weekends during the academic year.  Travel was a constant for me in my free time; it was good to escape the shitshow our country was descending into once in a while to clear my head.  My previous life has been stood on its head.  My passport expired three months ago.  I haven’t traveled by air since the very early days of COVID.  I’ve spent exactly one night in a motel, and only then because there was utility work being done on my block and I would be without water for a day.  

I don’t like living as I do now, but I can’t help the situation or myself.  I have developed new old habits.

 

© 2022 The Unassuming Scholar