As the ultra-conservative Supreme Court nears a decision that may erode or reverse Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that allowed abortion until fetal viability (23 weeks), Red states are moving swiftly to enact ever more punitive laws to punish women who get an abortion, as well as doctors or nurses who provide them.
Some thought that abortion pills that are easily available on the Internet would provide access to abortion for women in Red states that had banned it. But according to a recent article in the New York Times, 19 states have adopted new laws barring the use of abortion pills obtained by mail, and another 9 are considering similar legislation.
States such as Missouri are attempting to reach beyond their borders to stop their residents from going elsewhere to get an abortion, by pill or by surgery. Connecticut and California, meanwhile, are rushing to protect their citizens who might be penalized for helping women in restrictive states obtain the medication. One pill manufacturer has sued to stop a Mississippi law that requires the pills to be picked up and swallowed in a doctor’s office.…
In Texas, S.B. 8, which bans abortion after about six weeks, requires civilian enforcement, incentivizing citizens with bounties of at least $10,000 to sue anyone who helps a woman get an abortion. S.B. 4, the subsequent law against medication abortion, establishes a criminal violation for delivering the pills, making it a state felony punishable by $10,000 and up to two years in prison. A bill in Iowa would ban the distribution of the pills entirely, with punishments of $10,000 and up to 10 years in prison.
The Lancet, a medical publication that is considered reliable and reputable, recently reported that abortions done by mail-order pills are safe and effective.
Only days ago, Oklahoma enacted an almost total ban on abortions, with the sole exception of saving the pregnant woman’s life. A rapist faces a possible prison term of up to five years, but if the woman he raped tries to get an abortion, she may be jailed for up to ten years. What is the logic behind the disparate treatment?
The bill, Senate Bill 612, would make performing an abortion or attempting to perform the procedure a felony punishable by a maximum fine of $100,000 or maximum 10 years in state prison, or both.
The legislation, which first passed the state Senate last year, passed the state Republican-led House on Tuesday by 70-14, without debate or questions on the floor. The legislation now heads to Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, who previously promised to sign every bill limiting abortion that came across his desk.
Such a law would have been unthinkable before Donald Trump appointed three ultraconservative justices and Senator Mitch McConnell rushed through their confirmations.
Women in Red states who are affluent will find a way to get an abortion, by traveling to another state where it is legal (although some states are trying to criminalize that too). Women who are poor, most of whom are people of color, will have more babies. Ironically, this will hasten the changing demographics in Red states.
My personal view of abortion is that it is a decision to be made between a woman and her doctor. My views should not compel anyone else to do what I believe. Women who are opposed to abortion should not have one. Women who, for whatever reason, want an abortion should have access to abortion services that are safe and legal.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A woman from Rio Grande City, a poor community on the border, was just arrested for a self induced abortion. This law unfairly targets poor women that do not have the means to leave the state. Abbott is turning Texas into Berlin 1933 where people inform on their neighbors. Any Texan that finds this subversion of the 14th Amendment offensive should vote for Beto O’Rourke for governor. “The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a fundamental “right to privacy” that protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose whether to have an abortion.”
Democrats need to defend the Constitution. They should start calling these biased laws “The Republican Reign of Terror.”https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/apr/09/texas-woman-26-charged-murder-self-induced-abortion
Presumably this will create a black market, with no safeguards to ensure that people know what’s actually in the pills they buy.
For now, it’s not difficult to buy effective abortion pills online. As long as the mails are not searched by Big Brother, women should not need a black market.
I would think companies will be reluctant to ship to states that criminalize the product. For example, I don’t think you can easily buy flavored vape cartridges online if you live in a state that has banned their sale.
The success of the alliance of evangelicals and conservative Catholics, in taking away Americans’ rights
taking away rights so as to control: women, especially poor women, will pay this huge price
If the Catholic Church overtly discriminated against men as it does against women, there would be 50% fewer members.
The right wing attack on reproductive rights includes a goal to eliminate birth control. The campaign’s effect takes power away from both men and women as we saw in the great hunger of Ireland when 1,000,000 starved to death.
Linda,
Except for gun rights, of course.
In the Republicans’ ideal America, people of all ages will be able to buy assault weapons and ammunition freely, but women will be imprisoned for trying to buy birth control.
Guns in the south, midwest, and elsewhere won’t provide protection against dictators’ drones.
Abortion makes strange bedfellows. Calvin’s progeny and the Papists: what a strange alliance.
This is yet another voter suppression tactic. These laws are designed to turn the poor and women (both groups more likely to vote Dem) into felons. Felons can’t vote.
Christian Sharia Law, coming to your neighborhood soon.
Exactly so.
Not all Christians- the alliance of evangelicals and conservative Catholics
A refusal to name the enemy emboldens them.
Read, “The New Official Contents of Sex Education in Mexico: laicism in the crosshairs.” Scielo site, 3-3-2021.
A superb overview, that article. I also highly recommend it, and thanks, Linda, for pointing us to it.
Bob-
I presume both you and I fear the slow progress that is being made in gaining public awareness about the threat.
If the Supreme Court does overturn Roe and Casey, most of the red states will attempt to outlaw most forms of contraception since overturning Roe makes Griswold moot.
It’s not “religious freedom”, it’s religious tyranny. One million Irish died of starvation because of the economic control of men like Charles Koch combined with religious control by the Catholic church.
These are the nut jobs that talk about cancel culture and Freedom. Time for another Woman’s March on DC. To include Education and free speech issues as well as.
Yes, guys like Abbott and DeSantis want to invade the privacy of your bedroom, even police what you study abd think. They project what they are doing on others.
Ironic indeed that the most conservative Republican governors want the state to coerce people to believe what they believe. No freedom. No privacy. No right to disagree with Governor Gregg or Ron.
Red states are reinstituting witch hunts driven by an inquisition, a throw back to the religious wars after the Church split into more than one Christian religion. Instead of love and compassion, these fake Christians promote hate, anger, torture and punishment by sending innocent people to prison, destroying lives.
Red States are declaring war on everyone that doesn’t think like the core voters in the Republican Party that are easily identified by their Trumpish, MAGA for profit logos and misleading slogans all designed to promote hate.
Trump is Hitler. Trump is Putin. Trump is Kim. Trump’s supporters are no different than the supporters of Hitler, Putin and Kim.
What’s next, thirty lashes for the mere mention of an abortion. The GOP is determined to return us to 1950, maybe even 1850. On the other hand, Eisenhower is a socialist compared to the GOP reactionaries and troglodytes of 2022.
“determined to” make the U.S. into the Ireland of the great hunger when 1,000,000 died of starvation
The AP reported that Indiana is rated 2nd in mothers who lack prenatal care in the first trimester and, Indiana has more than 9% of its children in poverty without medical insurance. Catholics publicly take credit for the initiation and passage of school choice legislation in the state. It shows us the issues that the highly politicized conservative churches have success with when wielding their power.
Something between a third and a half of the unions between the egg and sperm meet the fate of never becoming implanted to grow. How can life begin at conception? If it does, how could anyone support robbing a woman of health care? She might not be in the proper shape for implantation. Is that murder?’
Haaa!
Sheesh, Republicans make laws against sending everything by mail these days. To satisfy Republicans’ quest to make sure nothing is going on without their consent, everyone send a ballot, an abortion pill, and a scandalously questionable rumor of WMDs to the Watergate Hotel so the Republicans can intercept the transmission and cover it up and include a press conference next door to a porn shop, lawmakers and governors standing together with the symbol of pious Republican virtue, Stormy Daniels. What a crew.
On the positive side Biden eliminated the ridiculous pension requirement that was designed to put it in mega-debt in order to justify privatizing it. We need an apolitical, public postal service.
Democrats don’t even need abortion pills, anyway. We have it done by Jewish space lasers.
To repeat or paraphrase a previously stated quote, “If you don’t approve of abortion—don’t get one!” I think it’s that simple. This is not a Taliban-like religious-based country. Religious influenced laws have no place in our secular, yes secular, country. We need to remind all of our conservative, religious & so-called patriotic friends & foes, that our Founding Fathers never wanted religion mixed into the government. That’s why “god” is never mentioned in the Constitution.
My view exactly. The Founders did not want any religion to impose its doctrines on others. That’s what freedom of religion means. You are free to practice your religion or to have none at all. No one should be able to pass laws expressing their religion and forcing it on non-believers.
Loved: my version of this controversy.
I have always said the right wing existed because some people need simple answers. But why force your simple answers on others? If you feel abortion is wrong, you are free to argue. You should not be free to force others to accept your arguments. Accepting other points of view is now foreign to a good chunk of the American public.
Jefferson- in every country, in every age, the priest aligns with the despot.
Mother Jones posted a recent article about the most politically powerful right wing religious sect in the nation. Experts quoted in the article said, those active in that religion who are not right wing (37%) have no plan to counter the advance of their Church’s political authoritarianism over the U.S.
Amen, loved2!
The Repugnicans are feeling pretty smug right now. They have a lock on the Supreme Court, they think they will easily gain control of the House and Senate in 2022, and they think they have a winning leading man waiting in the wings for 2024 in Ron DeSanctimonious. But before they stand on the deck of the carrier in January of 2025 and announce, “Mission accomplished,” they should consider, and would if they weren’t clueless and backward and out of touch, how fervently they are opposed by most people in the country on most issues, and especially by POC and young voters and soon-to-be voters. Abortion is an especially clear example of what I’m talking about. When they get what they want here, they will be met with MASSIVE resistance in the streets, and the tide of public opinion will turn dramatically against them. The same will happen when they attempt to roll back Social Security and Medicare. They will have to respond to the massive demonstrations with massive voting restrictions and, significantly, WITH FORCE, WITH STATE VIOLENCE, WITH FULL-BLOWN FASCIST REPRESSION, and they have shown themselves quite willing to do that in their responses to the BLM demonstrations. And so, my crystal ball is telling me that we are in for some very rough times, for a period of rapidly ramped up authoritarianism by a Greying Old [white people’s] Party–the Party’s attempt to rise Phoenixlike from the ashes to which they have reduced democracy.
Be careful, Pugs. You might get what you wish for. Then you will really be in a pickle. And so will everyone else.
Meanwhile, in Canada. . . .
https://twistedsifter.com/2011/07/picture-of-the-day-cops-in-canada/
Scroll down a bit for one of my favorite pics ever.
How well I remember Ronnie Reagan referring to the “Afghan freedom fighters” as “good, God-fearing folks, just like us.” He was talking, of course, about the Taliban, whom we were supplying with weapons in opposition to the Soviets.
The Repugnicans and the Taliban, brothers from another mother. Sometimes Ronnie got it right.
So, I’ve been practicing for my next career as a Republican speechwriter. What do you think?
We the members of the Freedumb Caucus support our freedom to control women’s uteruses, the freedom of bigots and nationalist extremists to decide what’s taught in history classrooms, the freedom to beat up and arrest people engaged in assembly and protest, the freedom to have your kids die at the hands of school shooters in a country where there are more guns than people, the freedom of predatory lenders to seek their prey, the freedom of grifters to run charter schools to divert taxpayer dollars into their own pockets, the freedom of taxpayers to finance fundamentalist madrasas via “education scholarships,” the freedom of people to have to work three jobs to pay rent, the freedom of people to have their teeth rot out of their mouths because they can’t afford dental work, and the freedom of people to die from lack of health insurance and healthcare.
Gee, I totally left out the freedom of billionaires to pay lower tax rates than do cashiers at Burger King.
There was a 2009 prelude to SCOTUS’ 2020 St. James Catholic school decision. It was in Wisconsin and involved a judge named Gableman. Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge Gableman is again in the news in a Raw Story article about Republican House Speaker, Robin Vos and e-mails related to voting and the outcome of the Presidential election.
Both men are Catholic. The Shepherd Express posted (2009), “Gableman Ordains Elementary School Teacher… Gableman has ordained a Catholic first grade school teacher (in order to) defend the right of religious institutions to discriminate against employees…The ordination makes her part of the spiritual leadership of the church.”
In the same article, the reporter describes Gableman’s defense of his right to lie in campaign ads.
At some point, the evidence of the politicking of conservative Catholics for Republicans against the rights of Americans will receive the attention in media and from influencers that is warranted and, required if American values are to survive.