Not only are abortion rights under attack but women's control over their own bodies is being criminalized.
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Note—A
version this first appeared on my blog
back in its relative infancy in 2007. And I have re-run it when the simple right
of meaningful reproductive choice has
seemed particularly threatened. The post
was drafted in response to an appeal from NARAL
Pro-Choice America for
stories about life before Roe V. Wade
for use in a new campaign in defense of women’s
right to choose, which back then unexpectedly
seemed under attack again.
Back in 2007 we were in shock that rights considered firmly
and irrevocably won were once again under attack. Twelve years later that attack has become a tsunami. Numerous attempts to sharply curtail abortion
in several states were routinely over-turned in Federal Courts. But after Republicans blocked almost all Obama nominees to Circuit courts leaving yawning vacancies the Trump mal-administration, with the full collusion of the Senate, filled those seats with
reliable conservatives, many of them
openly fanatic. Despite a drawn-out and contentious confirmation hearing, Brett Kavanaugh made it to the Supreme
Court after promising Senator Susan Collins that he considered Roe v. Wade “settled law.” Now with a 5-4 conservative majority, no
one expects him to respect that precedent.
The Roe v Wade decision did not come out of thin air--it was the result of prolonged and militant action by feminists--a victory hard won and not just benevolently granted.
Now a well-oiled machine has produced votes in several
states with gerrymandered Republican
super majorities and compliant governors are in competition with each
other to pass the most draconian virtual
abortion bans—so called heartbeat
bills. Old promises of so-called
mainstream right-to-lifers that they
would never criminally charge women have been cast aside. In Georgia every common miscarriage could result in a criminal investigation and even
traveling out of state to obtain a legal abortion would be a crime. Doctors
would face 99 year sentences in Alabama
and in several states family members, friends, and pro-choice advocate
could be criminally charged with abetting an abortion for acts as simple as making
a phone call, providing funds, or
driving to an appointment. In some states even the narrowest exceptions for rape, incest, fetal viability
or the health of the mother have
been eliminated. Legal experts say that
the language in some bills could result in a 12-year-old rape victim could be
charged with murder and face the death penalty.
The point of all of these bills is simply to get a case—any case—before
the Supreme Court so that the new majority there could completely over-turn Roe
v. Wade. In anticipation of that states
like Illinois are moving to protect
abortion rights by enshrining them in state constitutions. If Roe v. Wade was overturned simply to allow
states to exercise the power to enact their own restrictions, under the Federalism
long touted by conservative pro-abortion states could set their own laws
protecting women’s rights. And that was
the best the anti-abortion movement could have hoped for even two years ago.
Now, however, they have a reasonable hope that a Supreme
Court decision will not just return jurisdiction over abortions to the states
but will rule for personhood from
conception or at least so early in fetal development that women would have
no functional rights. That was the unattainable
Holy Grail of the most extreme wing
of the anti-abortion movement—until now.
If the Court makes that ruling it would open the door to Federal
legislation outlawing abortion under the same 14th Amendment “equal protection under the law” provisions used in Civil
Rights and voting rights cases.
Handmaidens and others protest at the Alabama state Capitol in Montgomery. |
That is the desperate situation women—and men who truly love
and respect women--find themselves in today in the United States. But they are not taking the attacks lying
down. From mass Handmaidens demonstrations to marches,
rallies, and organizing at the polls new resistance is rising.
We will not return to the conditions described in this old
blog post.
***
The Girl with Italian Renaissance hair.
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It was 1971 in Chicago. We’ll call her Ellen. She was a friend from
college, tall and willowy with Italian Renaissance brown hair. She had a chorus
part in an experimental rock cantata
by night and waited tables by
day. She was not my girlfriend. I wished she
was. I was a forlorn looking hippy
in a cowboy hat and bright orange goatee, the dopey/quirky best pal in a romantic comedy—the guy who moons
around and ends up helping the bad boy
with the megawatt smile get the
girl. We met for dinner about once a week and sometimes went out for a drink after her show on a Saturday night.
I came over to her place for dinner one night, Liebfraumilch
in a stone bottle in hand. She was
crying. “I’m pregnant. I don’t know what
to do.” I held her and comforted
her. I didn’t ask who the father was. She didn’t volunteer. It was, after all, the lingering twilight of
the ‘60’s.
But I was on the staff of the old Seed, the Chicago underground newspaper. I had connections. I knew people who knew people.
Those people were the
Jane Collective, semi-secret action group of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union who defied Illinois law and arranged safe
abortions. In later years I got to
know names and faces of some of them.
They were true heroes in a
desperate time.
I knew people who knew people. Those people were Jane.
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I helped Ellen get in contact with Jane. They arranged for her to
see a cooperating doctor. She had to go alone to the appointment, where she was given a chemical abortifacient. I waited for her in her apartment.
The procedure was as safe
as possible, but the cramping and pain from the induced miscarriage was serious in Ellen’s case. It lasted three days. I stayed with her the whole time. We were afraid to seek further medical help. Other women had been arrested in hospital
emergency rooms.
In the end, the procedure was effective. Ellen
recovered. She got on with her
life. She went off the next summer on
some high adventure and I never saw her again.
I got on with my life.
Within a few years, Illinois revised its laws in response to
Roe
v. Wade and safe abortions in clinical settings became available. Jane dissolved. But I will always remember Ellen’s needless ordeal
and will never knowingly allow another woman to suffer so.
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