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.

 

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