Texas,
with the help of conservative justices on the U.S.
Supreme Court,
has made abortion all but illegal for most pregnant people living
within state borders. Republican state legislators passed a draconian
and diabolically innovative bill
that Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law in May ensuring that all
abortions after six weeks of gestation can be subject
to lawsuits
brought by any individual anywhere against anyone involved in the
procedure. That includes the patient, their medical provider, or even
their Lyft driver. Those seeking abortions will likely need to leave
Texas, effectively making the procedure out of reach of the poorest
residents of the state.
Blair
Wallace, of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, told
NBCNews.com,
“We know the brunt of this will fall on our Black and brown
communities and our poor communities the most.” Only those with
the financial resources and ability to take time off work can travel
to neighboring states to terminate a pregnancy. Already abortion
providers in Louisiana
are fielding calls from desperate Texans seeking abortions, leading
to longer wait times.
Imani
Gandy, the senior legal analyst for RewireNewsGroup.com,
explained to me in an interview
that the Texas law is “really, really pernicious,”
because it is “using taxpayer dollars to provide a bounty for
bounty hunters to go attacking or harassing abortion providers.”
In
fact, the hundreds of Republican-led state-level legislative attacks
against abortion have cost
taxpayers millions of dollars
in legal fees of both pro-choice and anti-abortion forces. According
to the Washington
Post,
“states have paid at least $9.8 million in abortion providers’
[attorney] fees,” in the last four years alone. This is money
that could be put to better use—such as providing health care
to low-income residents that includes abortion and other reproductive
medical care.
For
a party that has been railing in favor of “individual
liberties” when it comes to lifesaving masks
and vaccinations
during a pandemic, asserting that a series of electrical
impulses
between newly formed cells are more important than a person’s
bodily autonomy is the height of hypocrisy and reeks of performative
politics.
Indeed,
Republicans may be victims of their own success, having relied on the
Supreme Court for years to preserve the seminal Roe
v. Wade
precedent against most egregious anti-abortion laws in order to score
political points with evangelical voters. According to one legal
analyst for Slate.com, Mark
Joseph Stern,
“it seems undeniable that Republicans did not anticipate this
abrupt triumph over Roe,
instead assuming that the Texas law would be blocked by the courts.”
Gandy
called the Texas law “patently unconstitutional,” and
pointed out that “no federal appeals court has upheld”
it, which is why pro-choice activists and legal scholars had expected
the nation’s highest court to intervene. Except that the
Supreme Court is currently, as Gandy described, “hyperpartisan
and captured by conservatives.”
Of
the five justices who chose to let the ban remain, three were
appointed by former President Donald Trump as a gift to evangelical
voters. Robert
P. Jones,
author of White
Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity,
wrote a year ago that “white evangelicals’ political
behavior is animated by racial resentment,” and that this
demographic “will be the most powerful force in hindering this
work for racial justice and reconciliation.” Given that
low-income people of color are likely to be the most impacted by the
Texas ban, this prediction appears prescient.
It
isn’t solely Trump’s fault that the right to an abortion
is on its way out. Maine’s supposedly moderate and pro-choice
Republican Senator
Susan Collins
in 2018 cast a deciding vote for Trump’s anti-abortion nominee
for the Supreme Court. In voting to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh,
who was one of five justices choosing to let the Texas abortion ban
stand, Collins now bears partial responsibility for beginning the end
of abortion rights in the United States.
Even
Democrats bear some blame. A party that has upheld the right to an
abortion as the centerpiece
of its feminist agenda
has done remarkably little to ensure the law is preserved from the
Supreme Court’s increasingly activist conservative justices. In
the nearly 50 years since the Roe
v. Wade
decision, Democrats have enjoyed political power in the House,
Senate, and White House simultaneously four times—under
Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and now Joe
Biden—and could have passed legislation protecting the
constitutional right to an abortion so that it didn’t hinge on
the Supreme Court’s political makeup.
In
the short term, corporations like Uber
and Lyft
have offered to pay the legal fees of any of their drivers who might
get sued for transporting a pregnant person to get an abortion. Some
celebrities
are announcing their own boycotts of the state of Texas, and the city
of Portland,
Oregon,
is also considering a boycott.
But
none of these commercial responses are a substitute for decisive
government action ensuring that all Americans, especially low-income
communities of color, have an equal right to access abortion care. In
the wake of the Texas abortion ban taking effect, House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives would soon take up
a vote on the Women’s
Health Protection Act,
which, if passed, would ensure that the right to an abortion was
cemented in law.
While
Gandy denounced Democratic inaction, saying, “we’ve had
Democrats in office that have not bothered to codify Roe,”
she added that the lawmakers’ inaction “really
underscores how powerful the anti-abortion lobby is.” A
majority
of Americans
support the right to an abortion, and yet the demands of the
anti-abortion minority have held the nation hostage to its whims.
Although
Biden’s Justice
Department has filed a lawsuit
and is seeking an injunction to stop the law from being enacted in
Texas, critics point out that it is a
long shot.
Now, six
other states,
including Florida and Mississippi, are hoping to follow in Texas’
footsteps and pass similar abortion bans. The train has left the
station, so to speak.
In
addition to legislation like the Women’s Health Protection Act,
activists want Biden to use his executive powers right now to protect
abortion access. Kristin Ford of NARAL Pro-Choice America said,
“The White House should make clear their commitment to this
critical legislation to ensure no other state has the opportunity to
follow in Texas’ footsteps.”
According
to Gandy, “the bottom line is, there will always be abortion.”
In light of the Texas ban, the questions center on “how people
are going to access it, and who the lack of access is going to affect
most—which is poor people, and people of color.”
Nations
like Poland
and Nigeria
offer a glimpse of the mental and physical toll in store for
Americans if the Texas ban were to take hold nationwide. Polish women
are suffering from a mental health epidemic as a result of their
nation’s abortion ban. In Nigeria, dangerous back-alley
abortion procedures are endangering lives.
Other
nations offer a different path. Shortly after the Texas ban took
effect, Mexico’s
Supreme Court decriminalized abortion, setting the stage for a
nationwide legalization of the procedure. And, in France,
where abortions are legal for pregnancies up to 12 weeks of
gestation, the government says it will begin offering free
contraception for everyone under the age of 25.
ere
in the United States, California
is
bucking the terrifying state-by-state anti-abortion trend by
considering a bill that will make the medical procedure cheaper, and
even free of charge. Already it is one of only six states that
require health insurance plans to cover abortion care. California
State Senator Lena Gonzalez said, “We’re taking a stance,
not just to make abortions available but to make them free and
equitable.” Indeed, if such a trend were pursued nationally,
the right to control one’s body would not be relegated to the
privileged among us.
This
commentary
was produced by Economy
for All,
a project of the Independent Media Institute.
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