The people behind this campaign do not represent the majority of this country, and they know it, so they consistently try to undermine the democratic process.
This movement seeks to rule by hollow theocracy, despite our constitutional separation of church and state. I do not know where this retraction of civil rights will end, but I do know it will go down as a milestone in a decades-long conservative campaign to force a country of 330 million people to abide by a bigoted set of ideologies. We are already seeing how several states are trying to legislate trans people out of existence with laws banning gender-affirming health care for children, and in Missouri, a proposed law could extend that denial to adults. That is to say, this decision is opening the door for social progress and civil rights to be systematically dismantled on the most absurd of pretexts.Īnd this is not a theoretical threat. Some have expressed the concern that by extending Justice Alito’s reasoning, other hard-won rights - such as the rights to contraception and marriage equality - could be struck down too. Wade is overturned.Īnd there are other disturbing considerations in the draft decision, written by Justice Samuel Alito. As many as 25 states are poised to ban abortion the moment Roe v. Still, it is a harbinger of terrible things to come. The Supreme Court has issued a statement emphasizing that the draft, while authentic, may still change. Abortion is still legal, though it is largely inaccessible in parts of the country. The same mostly male politicians who oppose abortion so often do everything in their power to oppose rights to paid parental leave, subsidized child care, single-payer health care or any kind of social safety net that could improve family life.
Despite promises from the anti-abortion movement to support pregnant women and children, the “pro-life” lobby appears to be invested only in the unborn. These burdens disproportionately fall upon poor and working-class women without the means to travel across state lines to receive the care they need. Without the right to abortion, women are forced to make terrible choices. Any civil right contingent upon political whims is not actually a civil right.
We should not live in a country where bodily autonomy can be granted or taken away by nine political appointees, most of whom are men and cannot become pregnant.