SCOTUS Overturns Roe v. Wade, Bringing America Yet Another Step Backwards
Today I woke up to the horrifying, disgusting news that it had happened–the Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade. As my one friend wrote, “Ahh yes. The fresh, clean scent of losing my rights in the morning.”
After the May leak that warned this was going to happen, it didn’t necessarily come as a surprise, but a small part of me hoped that something might have changed enough to alter the decision. Or at least, I hoped, that with the Democratic majority in Congress, we’d see some action by our “representatives.”
Unfortunately, as I pessimistically expected, just as the futile hope that the current administration would have the balls to at least *attempt* to codify Roe dissipated, so too did the hope of the Supreme Court justices feeling the pressure to stand by their oath to uphold the precedent.
So now, abortion rights have been returned to the states to decide on, instead of being upheld as a constitutional right to our privacy and upheld as a court precedent and the law of the land.
Justices Barrett, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Alito testified in their confirmation hearings that they would uphold the precedent. It turns out that was a lie, which I would have assumed lying under oath would be, I don’t know… against the law? But no one is ever held accountable for things anymore, so they’ll probably see no repercussions for lying.
Those of us who knew they were full of shit when they claimed they would uphold the precedent woke up to our fears validated today.
The Platitude Parade is Out in Force Today
What’s infuriating is that politicians are walking out the parade of comments about somehow not seeing the writing on the wall.
Joe Manchin is saying he’s “disappointed” and “shocked” about the justices going back on their word during the confirmation hearings where he helped confirm them. Either he is willfully ignorant, or he’s a liar feigning disbelief. Either way, his “shock” – real or not – means nothing. What’s done is done.
Susan Collins says the decision is “inconsistent” with what the justices testified and said in their meetings with her. No shit, sherlock.
Nancy Pelosi is tweeting stupid shit like, “Because of Trump, Mitch McConnell, and the Republican-controlled Supreme Court, American women today have less freedom than their mothers. The hypocrisy is raging; the harm is endless. Democrats cannot let this assault stand. We will organize and vote to restore our rights. -NP,” while having just endorsed an anti-choice candidate.
Oh no my good bitch (™ John Oliver), it’s because of the inaction of people like you who let this happen. Republicans and Democrats are both to blame for this turn of events.
Many politicians like Manchin, Pelosi, and Collins, are speaking their grievances or shock with today’s ruling as if they didn’t see this coming, sounding just as empty and fake as they did when they and others said things back in May or at other points in the past when abortion was on the chopping block. More insulting is that many of them are the same people who stood by and did nothing to try and act before this happened.
From this administration and every administration who failed to codify Roe since it was initially ruled nearly 50 years ago, with all due disrespect, I give a resounding “fuck you” to each and everyone complicit in this charade.
“StAtEs’ RiGhTs”
Even more infuriating is the fact that yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that gun control laws are NOT a states’ rights issue. As a result, states can’t decide whether to implement laws surrounding concealed carry, striking down laws that enforce training and licensing for people to conceal carry. That’s not a states’ rights issue, but stripping people’s control of their own bodily autonomy is?
Just as Roe v. Wade argued that a person has a right to privacy, especially regarding healthcare and reproductive care, this new ruling argues that states and, by extension, the government can interfere with your healthcare privacy rights. Which on its own sets a dangerous precedent. This is only the beginning, which I’ll cover in a separate piece.
Now that it’s overturned, 13 states with trigger laws essentially auto-reinstated their abortion bans this morning. How prepared they are to enforce them is a different question but also a moot point – if they can’t actively enforce them now does not mean they’re not working on it. In addition, several states already wrote bills ready to go if the ruling still went the same way as the leak suggested, with others in other stages of developing legislation to ban abortions.
Another fear of mine is the knowledge that if and when Republicans retake control of things (let’s be honest, the Democrats have set themselves to lose everything in the midterms this year and the general in 2024), they will undoubtedly push to make a federal abortion ban. This means that it will no longer be, as the Supreme Court ruled today, a states’ rights issue–a glaring contradiction.
The threat of the federal abortion ban has profound implications. As it stands now, Nevada is one of nine states where state law protects abortion rights. Here, abortion is protected up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. But while it gives the impression of being set in stone, if the wrong people get into the “right” positions of power, that could easily be changed. And if the federal government passes an abortion ban, our state law becomes nullified.
So much for a “StAtEs’ RiGhTs” issue.
If it ever comes to that, it will be interesting to see if Nevada lives up to its name as the “battleground state.”
And baby, home sure does mean Nevada, and I am “battle born.”
Get Your God Out of Our Government
We’re supposed to have a separation of church and state—end of story. You can be against abortion. You can believe life starts at conception all you want. Nothing ever stopped people from following their own beliefs. What Roe did was separate that belief from the law, as it should be.
Many people cite their God or religious convictions as the reason for stopping access to abortion and blatantly ignore the fact that not everyone shares their beliefs and that no one should be forced by law or by the government to comply with an ideology that’s religious in theory.
Same as same-sex marriage–don’t get gay married if you disagree with it, and don’t get an abortion if you think it’s a sin. But don’t tell other people how to live their lives or try to get the government to back your beliefs in order to control others.
Cus at the root of this, it is about control over people’s bodies. And if we don’t have a right to our bodies, then we have a right to nothing. If someone else owns and controls your body and your choices in life, then you have nothing.
Pro-life = Pro-forced-birth
Pro-lifers claim that they care about life but don’t actively show that they give a shit about life after birth. Some even argue that the penalty for getting or conducting an abortion should be death.
So for the people who are against abortion AND advocate for abortion to be banned, you are not “pro-life”; you are pro-forced-birth. And I will separate those who are pro-life but mind their business from those that make it their business what others do with their bodies.
If you want to stop abortions, but are against things like free childcare/daycare, universal health care, improved education, welfare assistance for low-income and impoverished people, and other things to care of people’s lives and the lives of children, then you are not in favor of life. Instead, you favor forcing people to carry a pregnancy they don’t want or can’t carry to term. And note, the reason for them needing an abortion is irrelevant; it’s no one else’s business besides the person and their health care provider.
If you advocate for protecting life but argue that children dying in school from mass shootings is a necessary part of having the right to bear arms, you are not a protector of life, nor do you actually support it in any real sense of the word. And after the last two days, the Supreme Court has argued that people have a right to choose to carry a weapon but do not have the right to decide whether to carry a pregnancy or terminate it.
And suppose we account for the anecdotal accounts of people working at abortion clinics. In that case, the number of conservative people who claim to be “pro-life” and still seek out abortions while simultaneously spitting in the faces of the medical personnel performing their abortion is pretty high. Not to mention that the rich and powerful will ALWAYS find access to abortions for their wives, daughters, and mistresses.
I wonder how many of these people are conscious of their blatant hypocrisy and how many are weaponizing it for control of women and other people assigned female at birth (AFAB) who find themselves needing an abortion.
And before someone out there reads that sentence and immediately misses the point and thinks I’m somehow erasing women by including other people capable of carrying a pregnancy–understand that trans men, nonbinary people, and ANYONE with a uterus have the potential to become pregnant and be impacted by this dangerous ruling.
I will not discuss the transphobic TERF arguments of supposed “women erasure” by including others who experience these same issues. I could argue that everyone, regardless of gender or identity, is affected by this one way or another–a husband could very well lose his wife if she has a life-threatening complication due to a pregnancy that the doctors can’t abort to save her life. A trans man who has not had their uterus removed or chooses not to remove it could become pregnant and be forced to carry that pregnancy. So this is not simply a woman issue. It’s a human rights issue. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
Comments By Others About Today
Today while working on a phone banking campaign, we are reaching out to people and asking them how they are feeling and doing after today’s ruling. It’s been a mixed bag of results, as can be expected. But one conversation stood out to me so far.
I spoke to a woman over 10 minutes earlier and listened to her as she expressed how terrified, disgusted, enraged, and sad she is. She told me she woke up this morning and broke down crying upon hearing the news. She felt lost and scared about what this meant for the future in so many terrifying ways.
“They’re coming for everything,” she said. And she’s absolutely right. But again, that’s a whole other conversation that deserves special attention.
After speaking with this woman, she thanked me for providing space for her to vent, said she would like to get involved, and signed up for additional information about issues like this.
My takeaway from that conversation is this: people are feeling many different, heavy emotions today. They’re upset. They’re ANGRY. And they want to take action.
I still reserve some level of hope that we’re not going to stand for this and that people will not sit idly by and let the government strip our rights from us.
Now more than ever, how we define ourselves as Americans and a self-proclaimed free people will determine the future of our country and what we stand for.
Because you can’t stand for freedom while letting it be stripped away from others in the same breath.
As Philip DeFranco said in his video today covering the ruling and people’s reactions to it, “Being an American stands for something different now.”
This was said in reference to responses from different people, including the Founder of Barstool Sports, David Portnoy, who spoke out against the ruling and advocated for women’s bodily autonomy. With Portnoy being an otherwise staunch Republican, his response was unexpected to many people on both sides. I recommend watching Phil’s breakdown of everything and the part including Portnoy’s reaction. It is eye-opening how this issue is not as black and white (or red and blue, I should say) as people try to make it seem.
Moving Forward
Abortions are not going to stop. They’re just going to become dangerous for those seeking them. People will die. Especially impoverished, marginalized people that need an abortion. Disabled people. LGBTQIA+ people. Victims of rape and incest. People who miscarry or develop life-threatening medical complications in the last trimester who wanted that pregnancy.
That’s why so many people and organizations are immediately moving to act and why each of us must do our part.
Rallies
For starters, if you’re looking for a rally tonight, the National Organization for Women and the Wild West Access Fund have planned a “Keep Abortion Legal” rally at 6 PM in front of the Las Vegas Federal Court House. Vagas DSA is also gathering in protest of the ruling at 7 PM in front of the Venetian.
Donate to Funds
Moreover, the Wild West Access Fund helps ensure free abortion access in Nevada and helps people overcome financial barriers and other hindrances to abortion care. Donate here.
Donating to organizations like WWAF, Planned Parenthood, and others helps to fight to protect abortion rights and ensure access to those who need it.
In addition, donate to funds and organizations working to help people seeking abortions in other states. We cannot abandon people in the South and people in other conservative states banning abortion. This is more than just a red versus blue state issue. People everywhere will suffer if we don’t act.
Call Your Representatives
Whether you live in a state with abortion rights protected or a state where they’re in danger, call your representatives and your senators. Demand they act to protect abortion and codify it into law. If you live in a conservative state, let your representatives know that you don’t support their stripping of our right to safe abortions.
I know it is infuriating to have to say something to the very people who have refused to do anything or even actively led to this happening.
Make them endure that rage. Don’t keep quiet. And don’t let a single one of them off easy.
Many Democrats running for office in the midterms will use this situation for political points. Don’t let their claims of protecting abortion rights be an empty promise. They are complicit in this happening and must be held accountable for their inaction and held liable to their campaign promises. Call them out on their bullshit, especially when they say or tweet empty platitudes.
Protect Yourself
Lastly, delete your menstruation tracking apps and delete all the data NOW. Your data is NOT private nor protected and sure as hell is not covered by HIPAA. If your menstruation pattern gets disrupted, that app data can be used against you by prosecutors. Even your search engine data can be used against you. More alarming is that HIPAA doesn’t even inherently cover reproductive health information in the first place.
According to STAT, “With Roe v. Wade now overturned, patients are wondering whether federal laws will shield their reproductive health data from state law enforcement, or legal action more broadly. The answer, currently, is no. If there’s a warrant, court order, or subpoena for the release of those medical records, then a clinic is required to hand them over.”
This means if you live in a state that bans abortion, the state can demand to see patients’ medical records showing they’re pregnant and have the potential to prosecute them should the pregnancy not make it to term, even in cases of miscarriage.
If you or someone you know needs access to abortion, please visit this website for more resources.
Do what you need to do to protect yourself and your mental health. Take some time today to mourn the loss of our progress and feel the grief of the implications of this ruling. Then, when you’re ready, it’s time to stand up and act. This is only the beginning.
Be safe out there. Dangerous times lie ahead. But together, we will see this through and get to a point where our rights are protected.
