By Ruth A. Sheets
January 22, 2023 marks 50 years since the Supreme Court in a 7-2 vote ruled the right to abortion is constitutional. They assumed women had a right to bodily autonomy although they didn’t call it that. They understood the Constitution permitted women, as well as men, to make decisions about their own bodies and future. Unfortunately, over the years, conservatives who needed an issue to pump their supporters up to a ridiculous frenzy on their way to power, clamped onto the issue of abortion which over time expanded to include women’s rights in general.
A bit over a century before the Roe v. Wade decision, the Pope in the Roman Catholic Church declared abortion anathema, not the exact words, but close enough. The supposed reason was to save women’s lives since abortion could be dangerous. Women were not seen as much, so the Church had to couch its decision in god language, a mortal sin to have an abortion. With five Catholic conservative justices on our Supreme Court, their task is clear, stop abortions at all costs in god’s name. The Church orders it.
A decade earlier, in 1857, a Harvard-educated New England doctor, needed an issue to prove how important and professional he as a doctor was. Horatio Robinson Storer settled on abortion as that issue and began his crusade against women and the midwives who supported women’s reproductive needs. Through Storer’s efforts, abortion went from being a non-issue to becoming one of the most contentious issues of the second half of the 19th century, and women had essentially no say in it. Few states or territories had laws against abortion before Storer came on the scene, but by 1900 nearly every state did.
Storer and others as time passed, all men of course, had little or no evidence that midwives were incapable of caring for women’s reproductive needs, or that abortion was so terrible. It didn’t matter, he was a medical man and at the time doctors (nearly all white men of course) were trying to be established as the authorities on everything related to health, including women’s bodies.
Moves against abortion began three-quarters of a century after our Constitution was ratified. The founders most likely never even thought of abortion and considered anything beyond their brief participation in begetting a child to be women’s work and promptly ignored it, well unless a baby was born, then he could claim it as his property.
Were Alito and the other anti-Roe justices aware of this? Did they even care? I suspect they knew and had to find a legal justification from before our nation’s founding they could use to do what they had intended to do all along. Alito et al should be ashamed of their choices of law-makers to cite, OK and to even overturn a precedent with no pressing need. But, when one’s goal is in reach, any argument will do. That’s particularly true if you know you can’t be challenged. The expectation of infallibility on the part of the conservative justices lately is disturbing.
Right now, the Supreme Court seems to be walking on the edge of a cliff. They could listen to the American people and start ruling in our favor or keep moving closer to being blown off the cliff where they will no longer be seen as relevant. This past year, the six told states they had limited ability to restrict gun ownership, yet told states they can restrict a woman’s right to abortion. Essentially they said, “white men, get a gun to use if you are scared” (white men seem to be scared all the time), but women, you have no right to your own body if a bunch of white men in state legislatures say you don’t. Yes, racism and misogyny are alive and well on our Supreme Court and there is no evidence a remedy is at hand. Women of color and poor women will suffer most, as usual.
Restricting abortion is cruel. It condemns women and children to carry a pregnancy whether it is the right thing for them or not. Who gets to decide, mostly rich, straight white men in power and their female surrogates. The men will never get pregnant and the surrogates want the trickle-down of power they may get agreeing with powerful men. Those women and some men have been brainwashed to believe their god is against abortion. If that were true, wouldn’t one expect that Jesus would have said something about it. If He had, it would have been recorded and passed down. He didn’t and It wasn’t.
As so many feminists of all races, creeds, and nationalities have said for years, women should have the sole decision of whether to maintain a pregnancy, with no interference from legislators at any level. And if one listens carefully to the anti-choice faction, their “reasons” to force women and children to remain pregnant are undemocratic (since more than 60% of the population supports the right of women to seek abortion with few or no restrictions).
So, let’s see, a collection of rich, white, straight men and their surrogates oppose abortion so women are condemned to carry fetuses to term, held as criminals if they have a miscarriage, losing their lives while waiting to be sick enough – close enough to death to have an abortion, seen as criminals to be jailed if they use chemical abortion aids or leave the state to get an abortion, jailed to force the woman to continue a pregnancy. That sounds like a kind of involuntary servitude, vulnerable women trapped in a system that has denied their rights and freedoms for a set of religious beliefs in a nation whose Constitution declares there will be no establishment of religion.
A few years back, I learned about a group of women in Chicago in the late 1960s who called themselves “The Janes.” They were heroes, women and a few men who saw a need and worked to figure out how to provide abortion services to thousands of women. Finally, they were betrayed by someone who just had to prove she was a handmaid of god or something. The prosecutions never went anywhere, though because of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.
We need “Janes” everywhere in our country now, doing everything they can to help women who need a termination to a pregnancy. We need a network (possibly secret) of people who can distribute abortion pills and transport women to abortion clinics. We need brave doctors who will help the few women for whom the pills don’t work properly. We need courageous doctors, nurses, and midwives who can provide abortions after the 11th week and those who step up and provide appropriate care for women in medical crisis so women won’t have to come close to death to get help. We need prosecutors who will dismiss abortion cases unless there is actual evidence of wrong-doing by a provider. We will require judges on federal courts at all levels that will dismiss cases brought by people against women who have gotten an abortion. In short, we need some courage throughout our nation. I know some exists, but there needs to be more.
Then, those of us who do not have a medical bent need to keep calling out Republicans and others for their disinformation and hypocrisy of wanting forced birth while providing absolutely no services to help the women who don’t even have the wherewithal to pay for prenatal care or giving birth. Republicans whine in protest at being called racists and misogynists while regularly demonstrating racism and misogyny.
We the People should also take turns when we can to be present at abortion and other health care facilities where anti-abortion folks are jeering, taunting patients, and lying through their many times magnified supposed pictures of abortions. We have left the ground to them when we should have been there more openly. We can also heavily support candidates in every district, every community who believe women have the right to whatever health care they need, including abortion. Ditch the toddler-adult candidates who can’t see past their own “beliefs” to let others have theirs. We the People can do this!
And so, the challenge for us 50 years on is knowing the anti-women, anti-everyone who is not rich, straight, white, and male movement will continue working to hurt us all if not thwarted. They will pass archaic laws and work to enforce them no matter who is harmed. That is cruel, but cruelty is their point. We the People can stop this if we work together as the Janes did 50+ years ago!
