Weddington’s victory in Roe v Wade changed the healthcare landscape for American women,ending illegal,expensive and often lethal backyard abortions and,for the next 50 years,enabling clinics and hospitals across the country to provide and advertise abortion services.
Weddington died last December so will not see her landmark constitutional victory reversed by the current court,but she,like any sentient political player in the US,and beyond, 2020 that it was guaranteed to happen. That was the day the lightly qualified Amy Coney Barrett replaced on the court.
The shock and awe is totally disingenuous. Repealing Roe v Wade has topped the Republicans’ To-Do list since Reagan,and they have been going about making it happen in plain sight ever since. It has taken them 40 years but with ruthless focus on taking control of statehouses and applying an abortion “litmus test” to all judicial appointments they have won:control of around 26 states that are setting in place anti-abortion laws and – the Holy Grail – a majority on the US Supreme Court.
This decision is profoundly anti-democratic,at odds with (depending on the poll) of Americans who support Roe v Wade,but legitimacy is irrelevant to Republicans when it comes to banning abortion. According to this week Republicans have won the popular vote in only one of the last eight presidential elections,but have appointed six of the nine current members of the Supreme Court.
Although the decision itself is entirely predictable,the leak is a big deal because a full decision
has never been released before. It signals just what is at stake,and the lengths to which the now utterly politicised court will go to prevent women from controlling their bodies.
The leaking appears designed to lock in the five conservative justices who had already informally voted to repeal Roe. Chief Justice John Roberts had yet to declare his position,but he had floated during the oral argument in December for the case in question (whether to uphold a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks) the option of supporting this law,rather than a total repeal of Roe. Had he been able to persuade one of the five to this position,Roe would have been cut back from its current 22 weeks,but abortion would still be a federal right.
That probably won’t happen now,and the legality of abortion will in future depend on which state you live in. Self-managed abortion using pills (in Australia known as RU-486) are already widely in use in US states where abortion is illegal or hard to come by and this is likely to expand. Women’s groups and abortion providers have well-established platforms to advise and support women through the process of obtaining the pills by mail.
And,of course,the Republican lawmakers are hot on their trail. Just last month a young Texas woman was charged with manslaughter over a “self-induced abortion”,but fortunately the charge was dropped. Some states are looking at paying bounties to anyone who dobs in a woman administering her own abortion,while others are working on how to ban pregnant women travelling to states where abortion is legal.
There has been considerable speculation that the also to be repealed,but I think this is unlikely. The target is,and always has been,women and their ability to control their reproductive functions. So don’t for a moment think that these anti-women Republicans will be content to just leave it to the states,given that almost half are likely to enact pro-abortion laws. Alito’s draft gives them the mechanism. As an article in points out,the draft argues for a “right to life” for the foetus under the Fourteenth Amendment. If such an opinion earned the support of the majority it would override all state laws,ensuring a total ban on abortion across the United States.
The handmaid’s tale would no longer be fiction.
And the continuing decline of American democracy would be underscored. Can it be stopped? Sadly,the Democrats seem clueless. Having been outmanoeuvred by laser-focused Republicans for decades now,they appear totally impotent. Maybe the rage of voters will express itself via support for the Democrats in the November mid-term elections,but with no solutions on offer this reversal of women’s rights seems unstoppable.
In the past 20 years,31 countries have expanded abortion rights,including conservative Catholic countries such as Mexico and Argentina. Only three nations have rolled back these rights for women to control their bodies:Nicaragua,Poland – and the United States.
Twitter @SummersAnne
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