Don’t Let Republicans Erase Our Rights!

The anti-abortion movement has been used by Republicans for the past 50 years (since Roe) as an integral foundation of their platform and war against women.

It’s about using power and control over women by denying their bodily autonomy and treating women like wombs, just as in “The Handmaids Tale” (a fictional story of a dystopian society where women are enslaved and forced to bear children to benefit the barren women of elite society who take the babies as their own.)Now, the highly politicized Supreme Court comprised mostly of Republican-appointed justices is poised to overturn Roe and reverse a woman’s rights to reproductive freedom.And fiction becomes truth.

One of the arguments actually stated by Justice Alito in the draft decision is “The domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth or within the first month of life and available to adopt has become virtually nonexistent.” And during the hearing, Justice Amy Coney Barrett was happy to point out that unwanted babies can just be left at a fire station through “safe haven laws” in most states. Both seem to imply that women should be willing to carry babies for 9 months so that others who are wealthier or better positioned can adopt them. And these babies would be “domestic” so that adopting families won’t need to go to Asia or other countries to get the babies. And, the babies would be new (at birth), so the pool of 400,000 children in the current (tainted) foster system needn’t be considered for adoption.

Government-forced childbirth is a form of violence and abuse of the sort that authoritative dictatorships evoke against their citizens. It is about a minority taking away basic rights, liberty, and freedom from the majority. It must and can be stopped by voting Republicans who don’t support “choice” out of office (and that’s most of them.)

An overwhelming majority of Americans believe a woman’s right to choose should be protected. Women who don’t want to have an abortion aren’t forced by the government to have one, so what gives Republican legislators and right-wing evangelicals the right to force their religious or moral beliefs and choices on everyone else? When Obamacare was implemented, the number of abortions declined significantly in most every state, but so did births. Why? Because of expanded access to contraception. In response, Republicans spent the last decade trying to overturn the Affordable Care Act and passing draconian laws that make it even more difficult to get abortions.

Anti-abortion proponents (and Republicans who leverage the movement to maintain power over women) claim the issue is about the sanctity of life, but it isn’t. They are not pro-life; they’re pro-birth! And the hypocrisy is staggering!

If they really cared about life after the babies pass through the birth canal, they’d fight for:

• Expansion of Medicaid to ensure prenatal care for pregnant women who can’t otherwise afford health insurance.

• Reduction of the high mortality rate of pregnant women of color.

• Programs that enhance quality of life of post-utero children, i.e., the child tax credit, paid parental leave, and guaranteed sick leave.

• Expansion of the Affordable Care Act to provide health care for all.

Furthermore, if they were really pro-life and appreciated the sanctify of ALL LIVES, they might:

• Accept that LGBTQ individuals are created by the same God they believe in.

• Eliminate the death penalty.

• Fight for people to earn a living wage and equal pay for equal work.

• Ensure contraception is widely available and free for all.

• Ensure access to safe legal abortions because it will reduce the number of deaths that occur from unsafe abortions.

Abortions existed before Roe and will continue afterwards. What will change is that desperate girls and women will return to coat hangers and back-alley practitioners, and many will die. People who can barely provide sufficient food, clothing and shelter for the children they already have will be driven further into poverty. Victims of rape, including children who are victims of incest, will be forced by the government to bear children they don’t want. Students and others in critical stages of career development will have dreams deferred or eliminated, while important decisions about the timing of motherhood are made by the state. Women who don’t feel ready mentally, or are concerned about personal health issues will have this very private and personal decision taken away from them, their families and their doctors. Women who miscarry may be arrested and falsely accused or convicted of murder by self-inflicted abortion. And poor, disadvantaged, working-class women will be most affected. Wealthy women will be able to fly to whatever state (or country) they must go to for the health care service of abortion.

Women of all races, ethnicities, and political parties must rise up and fight for bodily autonomy and the right to make personal health care decisions that affect their lives. Men, the LGBTQ community, and everyone else who loves them and values freedom must stand with them. Vote against every Republican who won’t support women’s reproductive rights, up and down the ballot. We cannot go back. This cannot stand!