HANDS OFF ROE V WADE

Pour yourself a coffee, have a sit down for a few minutes and wonder why everything the right wing,

especially the toxic American version of, inevitably turns as much as possible to dust. Think of, for

example, any number of huge economic upheavals, such as the Wall Street Crash or the housing

market financial implosion of 2008, both of which were on Republicans’ watch. And of course, it was

FDR and Obama that had to subsequently sort those messes out afterwards. And if it’s not

economic disasters, it’s the tragedy of the “War on Drugs” or the dangerous, democracy threatening

buffoonery of MAGA. Now though, the rabid American right, have their focus firmly set on to

another fixation of theirs of which they wish to turn to dust – Roe v. Wade / abortion.

Despite the long held legal consensus that Roe is settled law, Republicans and evangelicals have

never accepted the decision. Abortion has become one of their obsessions, along with Trump, guns

and idolizing the billionaire classes. Roe won 7 – 2 in the Supreme Court in 1973, ensuring that

abortion was available to women across the country and, since then, saved the lives of countless

women for whom child-birth would have been potentially fatal. Now the Supreme Court, with a

conservative majority, is re-assessing its stance on Roe following Texas’s enactment of the strictest

abortion laws in the land. Abortion beyond six weeks is now a criminal act in the Lone Star state, for

both the woman in question as well as the medical professionals undertaking the procedure.

Cruelly, that includes cases of rape, incest and sexual abuse.

The Justice Department challenged the new Texan law, resulting in the matter landing on the desks

of the Justices of the Supreme Court. And let’s not forget, Trump, of all people, placed three

conservative justices to the Supreme Court in the time that he was in the Oval office. Putting aside

the jaw-dropping irony of Trump’s pre-Presidential playboy life, with accusations of sexual

impropriety still swirling around him to this day, we have a horror story of the final say of the

American judiciary primed by the tiny hands of Donald Trump. Still, it’s no surprise that Trump did

this. He has a history of misogyny as long as one of his ridiculous red ties. That he’s now set the

scene for the Supreme Court to start the right-wing’s long coveted dismantling of Roe, what would

he care?

The Supreme Court has said that while they uphold Texas’ restrictive new abortion laws, abortion

providers are at liberty to sue the state in federal court by way of restitution. That’s as may be, but

the fundamental fact is the Supreme Court is slowly starting to erode the settled law that is Roe. Yet

again, the USA is headed in the diametric opposite of where the vast majority of the rest of the

Western world is going when it comes to female productive rights. Even the traditional base of

Catholic conservatism, the Republic of Ireland, legalized abortion in 2018. How about Russia, that

bastion of anti-democratic autocracy, has fully unrestricted abortion rights for women. Yet if the

American, right-wing evangelical movement has its way, the Texas ruling would be just a taster of

what is to come on the road to the complete annihilation of Roe and the banning of all abortions in

the country. Which, when it comes to American women’s productive rights, would put the USA on

the same moral plane as Madagascar, Laos and Iraq. Of course.

What is it then, that makes the American conservative / evangelical movement care so much about

the child before it is born but not afterwards? “Protect the unborn” they piously cry and yet once

born – Paid maternity leave? You have to be joking! Protection from gun violence in schools and

elsewhere? Never in a million years! The right to affordable housing, a job that pays and protection

from medical debt and crippling student loans? Now that’s just socialist garbage! And so it goes on

and on…

Even though the long-anticipated attack on Roe is now well under way, the war is far from over. For

example, the FDA has just announced that it is easing a long-standing restriction on an abortion

medication for early-term pregnancies being available only by way of in-person visits to the doctor’s,

with mail and tele-health options now being made available. Likewise, California’s Governor Gavin

Newsom is looking to implement the legal tactics of Texas’ new abortion laws to implement stricter

gun laws in the Golden State.

And there will be more challenges still, because the cry of “Hands Off!” when it comes to women’s

rights, has never been louder than it is right now.