Progressives will fight for women’s rights, and we may prevail. What will happen if we lose?
Let’s assume for a moment that Roe and Griswold will soon be overridden, and that hundreds of Federal judicial appointments that ought to have been Obama’s will now be made by Trump and ratified by a feckless or impotent Senate. Let’s assume (optimistically) that the Trumpists adopts a Federal solution – regulation of abortion and birth control returns to the states. What would America look like then?
Massachusetts will retain regulations that look a good deal like today’s. So will New York, California, and some other places. The Deep South will outlaw abortion and restrict birth control. Throughout the rest of the country, the politics will be brutal. There will be lots of places where it’s hard or illegal to obtain an abortion.
That means lots of women will again go on abortion vacations. That’s expensive, so there will be lots of fundraising to help poor women fly to free states. Where states enact restrictive controls on birth control (e.g. requiring parental consent for minors), there will be a more-or-less open black market in smuggled birth control, too. That will take money and plenty of willing hands. We should make plans now, and hope we don’t need them.
The pro-Life zealots will hate our plans. District attorneys who want votes and publicity will crack down. Congress will be lobbied to pass laws against interstate transport for the purpose of obtaining an abortion. Prosecutors will try to shut down Planned Parenthood for criminal conspiracy.
The marchers on Boston Common last Saturday knew that they were standing where abolitionists had stood. Every time a woman is killed or crippled by a back-alley abortion, her name will be read from the pulpits of old New England churches — Unitarian and Universalist churches that were born out of support for abolition and immigration. Every time a contraceptive smuggler is arrested, her name will be read from the pulpits of glass-walled megachurches. Denominations that have been neighbors for a century will again despise each other. The Catholic Church in the US will split in two.
People will not forswear sex because they will not give up love. We know this. Women won’t give up their sexual autonomy, wrested at long last from the iron grip of biology. They’ll fight, and their friends, their lovers and their families will fight beside them. If they cannot stop the law, they will work around it. If they cannot save their sisters, there are not jails enough to hold them.
Appeals to Joe Sixpack and talk about primarying Catherine Clark are appeals to a vanished America, a time when All In The Family was real and Louisa Day Hicks was a Democrat. You’re not going to beat Katherine Clark from the right today, and you’re certainly not going to beat her from the right when the resistance is fighting to save women’s lives in Savannah and writing letters from their prison cells in Birmingham.
The vintage where they store the grapes of wrath is right over there, and the fruit hangs heavy on the vine.
Because currently they make it easier for women on Medicaid to get IUDs. Note that they were the first state to do so.
http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2016/11/04/how-some-states-make-effective-birth-control-more-available
Birth control and abortion are not the same thing.
Heck, in Massachusetts birth control was illegal until 1973, long after it was legalized elsewhere, and it was not covered by insurance as a medication until after 2000. Millions of women here paid for birth control out of pocket for their entire reproductive lives. It was no novelty to go to Rhode Island for contraception.
But while abortion cannot be outlawed entirely due to the 1973 Supreme Court decision (notice when Cardinal Cushing finally gave in and allowed contraception to be legalized?), there may be barriers. Personally, I have no problem with a waiting period except for medical emergency, and Right To Know literature. It IS an important decision, and there should be some reflection. But a day’s wait is not the same as an outright ban, and those of us who remember illegal abortions know the difference.
I am not arguing we shouldn’t be vigilant in advocating for reproductive rights, but we should remember a ton of restrictive laws have already been passed at the state level despite Roe and despite a Democrat in the White House. That’s where the action will continue to be. The rear guard assault on reproductive rights rather than a front guard action that would be politically toxic for the Republicans.
My biggest concern is the ending of the birth control mandate and the IUD coverage which will make basic birth control substantially more expensive. The abortion rate will climb under Trump just as it did under Bush since family planning funding will be eviscerated. My wife and I have just set up a recurring monthly donation to Planned Parenthood so that this safety net can be preserved even if the government fails to preserve it. We should all do the same.
…to have a recurring monthly donation to CVS. At least you have that option, and until recently it was not available. And if PLANNED PARENTHOOD created a secondary arm exclusively for abortion, it would not even be discussed. Contraception is the organization’s fig leaf.
WaPo:
42% of services STD treatment and services, 34% contraception, 11% other women’s health services, 9% cancer screening.
You need a fig leaf for this comment.
Margaret Sanger opened the world’s first birth control clinic, in Brooklyn, in 1916. In 1921, Sanger founded the American Birth Control League; that organization is now known as Planned Parenthood.
Progressives should understand that Roe is not the target. Griswold — the decision that provides access to birth control — is very much in Republican sights.
…going back to at least to at least 1850 BC.
Margaret Sanger did, however popularize the phrase “birth control” in 1914, and Planned Parenthood underwrote the research that led to the birth control pill.
…I have a much easier time seeing Roe overturned than Griswold. There are reasonable people who believe abortion is the taking a life. Very few I think are so against birth control they would ban it if they could. I predict many more states will keep birth control legal and accessible if left to their own devices.
On both fronts. Universal access to contraceptives under Obamacare has led to the largest reduction in the abortion rate in a single presidential administration (15%). Universal access to IUDs in Colorado actually cut the abortion rate in half while reducing teen pregnancy by 65%. Colorado Right to Life condemned that pilot program since “everyone knows contraceptives encourage promiscuity”. They aren’t even bothering with the pretense this is about protecting fetuses anymore, it’s all about taking agency away from women.
Remember Hobbby Lobby was about a private corporation telling its employees not to use contraception. So the modern right to life movement is even more conservative than the kind Henry Hyde used to advocate for. Hyde recognized that there needed to be reasonable exceptions for rape, incest and health and even proposed federal funds for birth control as an alternative to federal funds for abortion. Now it’s anti-birth control as well as anti abortion.
When did Hobby Lobby tell its employees not to use contraception?
The owner of Hobby Lobby issued an open letter to employees sometime before 3-Jan-2013 (emphasis mine):
Of course, this letter is notable for several things it does not say, as reported by NPR and others:
1. In their lawsuit and arguments before the court, Hobby Lobby argued against IUDs as well as the items mentioned in their letter to employees.
2. Hobby Lobby had offered the coverage in dispute for years under their “Plan B” health insurance offered employees.
An IUD certainly IS a form of contraception. It works by preventing implantation. The result is NOT an “abortion” by any but the most extreme (and extremely illogical) definitions of “abortion”. A sexually active woman who does not use any form of birth control loses 30-70% of the fertilized eggs she carries. The use of the IUD makes that figure 100% — NONE of those lost fertilized eggs are “abortions”.
Hobby Lobby made it’s stance quite clear to its employees, even if they lie by omission in neglecting to mention IUDs in their list of mechanisms they oppose.
…that with actual hardline restrictions staring them in the face, states may back down, especially if forced to politically. Roe has given people complacency to think that states can’t do any actual damage to abortion rights so these symbolic or minor restrictions have been allowed to pass to please a base. Without Roe people will quickly realize such restrictions will or could actually happen and be more inclined to fight them.
how many people (reality check: mostly women) who either
(a) don’t vote in state elections, particularly not on POTUS years, or who
(b) vote for a (typically GOP, sometimes Dem) candidate who isn’t vocal about protecting abortion access
will now show up to vote should Roe be overturned in substantial part or whole. That is, would that SCOTUS action be enough to give Dems enough seats in state houses and senates to actually flip control of state legislatures?
…A COURT DECISION.
It is not legislation. It is a declaration by the Supreme Court. Dear God, don’t you think if it could be overridden that it would have been done or at least attempted is the last FORTY-FOUR years?
To even challenge the decision, you would need a relevant cast to work its way up through the state and appellate court systems, and then be accepted by SCOTUS for a hearing – and THAT schedule will not be announced until October of 2017! To be decided in 2018!
A LOT of people are ignorant about the difference between a law and a court judgement. I had not expected BMG to be among them.
They all like to preach stare decisis, but depending on the justices, it wouldn’t be possible. A Republican Congress could pass legislation that is then adjudicated by a favorable SCOTUS.
…that by overridden, the diarist meant overturned by SCOTUS.
The hyperbole and accusations of ignorance are not necessary, though perhaps a reaction to the hyperbolic jingoism of the OP. MS and SD voters, no liberal bastions there, overwhelmingly rejected state constitutional amendments that would’ve allowed for a challenge on Roe.
The interesting action is whether these 20 week bans will be challenged and whether they will be upheld. It’s unlikely Roberts would be willing to hear a case that broadly opens up the entire question-but rather focuses on that narrower restriction. Casey would indicate that these bans at the state level are permissable, while Gonzales v Carhart opens up the possibility of a federal ban. That could pass. But again-late term abortions are only 1% od the procedure.
Federal funding has been prohibited for over 35 years because of the Hyde Amendment, which as recently as 2012 had broad bipartisan support. The action will stay at the state level. And it’s certainly a relevant 2020 issue as it’s more likely you’d have vacancies in that term.
On these questions I differ to David who will likely have an accurate and compelling explanation for why I am wrong-he’s an actual expert while the rest of us are laymen/women speculating.
Yes, dear porcupine, I know perfectly well the difference between a judicial decision and legislation. If you think that abortion and birth control are not in danger from the coming changes in the composition of the Supreme Court and Federal bench, I submit that you have not been reading Alito, Thomas, and Scalia. Nor have you noticed how Citizens United overturned generations of established case law, nor the frequent — indeed incessant — test cases that are offered annually in hope that the Court will overturn Roe and then Griswold.
JConway is more sanguine than I that Roe and Griswold will endure. I see scant evidence; once the Supreme Court’s coming conservative majority starts to uphold state restrictions on abortion and birth control by 5-4 or 6-3 margins, we’re going to have a lot of doctors in jails and young women in cemeteries, and a lot of people will be asking Progressives where the hell they were.
It can happen here.
And my argument is that by focusing on Roe, which likely isn’t going away, we have taken our eye off the ball on state based regulations that have already eroded the right to choose in all but name in those locales.
These are the restrictions that happen even when Democrats control the court or the White House. I’d rather focus on that fight than be caught as a perennial chicken little when a forty five year old court decision doesn’t go away.
But then again, without hysteria over the court decision, how can you fundraiser?
IMO, no matter who Trump appoints, SCOTUS will decline to hear a case to overturn Roe.
The base of your party apparently is ok with a big government pro-Russian protectionist who doesn’t respect the Constitutional limits on the executive so long as he appoints anti-Roe justices. You have to concede Trump is almost the antithesis of a Reagan or Goldwater conservative.
…of any president or candidate since the dawn of electronic mass media in the 1960’s. Nobody knows what he plans to do – he may not.
Which is why these hyperbolic assurances of what he will do and his long term evil schemes look so silly. And the fear mongering for fundraising is so toxic. A coworker told me yesterday that her cousin is cancelling her wedding in Philadelphia because Trump was going to make gay marriage illegal and she didn’t want to get married, change insurance, etc. and have to do it again in a couple of months. Telling her about the court decision, how it could not happen that way, etc made no difference. It was right there in black and white on Huff Po or Slate or some other fake news site.
And when things do not come to pass, your valid opposition will be ignored because of exaggeration now.
It’s also shows my growing concern about civic ignorance is valid. A lot of friends on social media are reposting stories saying “Trump cancels x or cuts y” without realizing that only Congress can authorize or take away funds. And that many prior Republicans did things like the Mexico City policy or threatened to kill NOR withotnit coming to pass. Or that you would need a SCOTUS decision to overturn a SCOTUS decision and it’s highly unlikely marriage is touched by his nominees.
And it means more troubling things like trade unions getting excited about Trumps infrastructure plan or Trump delivering on the GLX while Obama could not are not getting attention. They are gonna give Trump a ton of stimulus they refused to give to Obama that he will loudly take credit for. This guy is going to be very tough to beat since he doesn’t play by the old rules. Doesn’t mean I like him, it does mean we finally have to respect his political abilities and adapt to them.
According to the rules, “The purpose of Blue Mass. Group is to develop ideas that will invigorate progressive leadership in Massachusetts and the nation.” Calling Slate a “fake news organization” is a talking point (and lie) of the white supremacist “alt-right,” one intended to argue that sites like Stormfront and Daily Caller, which do carry fake news, are just as legitimate as Slate and The New York Times.
Is there a site somewhere for actual progressive discussion of local and regional issues? That should be BMG, but apparently it’s not BMG any more.
If you have suggestions, please email bernstein@eastgate.com; there’s no point in wasting time on comment sections.
PP was being jocular (mainly).
Mark – earlier on, I asked JC for backup for his assertion that Hobby Lobby told its employees not to use contraception, using the classic Citation Please.
A reply was posted quoting a letter they sent to employees about why they were not going to pay for it, but nowhere in that reply did it tell them not to USE it, which is what he said. I imagine if they had said such a thing, it would have been posted multiple times. Yes, you can try to make an extension that by not paying for it they were saying not to use it, but it is just an inference and a deduction from a political enemy (and as I said above, it would have been equally true of any MA employer up to 2000 since the state did not require contraception to be paid for on health plans so women paid out of pocket).
When conversing in a bubble, it is easy to gloss over what is actually said and leap right to what in inferred or deduced, and that happens often on places like HuffPo. But when those outside examines it, they see alternative facts and call them that.
BMG has always been Reality Based. I believe I was the first Differently Winged poster, but that was why I chose to participate. No extreme has all the answers, and many have none at all beyond rhetoric.
How long has it been since you punched a clock for an employer who could fire you at will whenever it suited that employer’s fancy?
In this case, the owner of Hobby Lobby sent a letter to every employee stating:
That letter, cited in full above (at your request) goes well beyond simply explaining why they don’t want to pay for the insurance (never mind that they had been happily paying for the same coverage for years at the time they wrote the letter in question). It ends with the above quote, a clear expression of their belief.
I don’t know about you, but I have punched a clock — long enough to know that when the owner says what this owner said about the owner’s beliefs, that owner is saying loud and clear “don’t use these”.
Try some hypothetical alternatives. If the owner had said “I believe, as matter of religious faith, that blacks are genetically inferior to whites”, would you claim that the statement was not telling employees to avoid hiring blacks? If the owner had said “I believe, as a matter of faith, that women are created by God to be inferior and subjective to men”, would you claim that the workplace was not hostile to women?
And then you close by apparently defending the oxymoron of “alternative facts”. Sorry, but that is utter nonsense. The place where “alternative facts” exist is in Orwell’s 1984.
Is one thing for a sectarian organization to make religious conditions part of employment, after all, that’s part of the bargain and something that’s always been protected. But ridiculous for private sector employees to believe that. I’m waiting for the clever capitalist to convert his whole company to Christian Science and that way get out of paying for medicine for any of its employees.
I sign a timesheet, though…is that too sissy to be a clock puncher?
By refusing to cover it it becomes practically too expensive for most women. I know my sister in law wouldn’t be able to afford hers out of pocket and I’m glad my wife and I can save $50 a month for other expenses.
And I recall you blamed the pre-2000 status quo on Finneran and the Irish Mafia in Beacon Hill. Yeah they were part of my party but they were in the wrong along with any ‘progressives’ that enabled them.
Health care is a right and not a privilege and birth control is a vital form of preventive health care no employer has the right to take away from their employee.
Nobody is disputing the right to use contraception.
The dispute is how to pay for it.
in all the developed nations of the world where health care is a human right. Alas, here in the USA, we still bow down to the corporate leaders.