“We want to give abortion control back to state legislatures” was never going to work

That was a standard argument for overturning Roe — this isn’t an issue that should be decided by “unelected judges” but by the people and their elected legislators. Kavanaugh and Alito both made the argument in Dobbs that by overturning Roe they were removing the courts from the process. Nikki Haley signs on to the myth, claiming the Dobbs court took abortion “out of the hands of unelected justices and they put it in the hands of the people.”

Instead courts are more involved than ever. Sure, our elected representatives in Congress set rules requiring E/Rs to provide emergency care. However a federal appellate court has decided as the law doesn’t specify that includes emergency abortions, it can’t be used to override state let-the-slut-die laws.

Remember Kate Cox, who went to court in the hopes the judges would let her doctors provide a medically necessary abortion? As Dahlia Lithwick points out, the people who know have sway over her choices and her doctors’ medical judgment include Texas AG Ken Paxton, and the nine justices of the Texas Supreme Court — with Sam Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Donald Trump having laid the groundwork. “Texas has elected an all-Republican Supreme Court that is now asserting in a written opinion that the judiciary shouldn’t be deciding reproductive rights questions because such questions should be left to medical experts, at the exact same time that it is second-guessing a real, live medical expert and granting to itself the sole power to decide which acute medical conditions are life-threatening and which are just jolly good fun. ”

For some conservatives that’s just fine; according to Texas columnist Cynthia Allen, “suffering is part of life” and women having agency over their pregnancy and birth is “folly.” Valenti: “And there it is. Women are born to suffer, and not having control of our bodies is actually just the natural state of things. (It never ceases to amaze me how many of women’s ‘natural’ roles need to be forcibly enshrined in law.).” She goes on to point out how central this assumption is to the right-to-life movement and the judges who support it. Or like one right-winger sneer at people whose “conceptualization of good and evil is predicated on individual liberty.”

Perhaps the belief in lack of agency explains why forced-birthers, as far as I know, are comfortable with a 14-year-old girl not getting her autoimmune medication, even though she wasn’t pregnant (but she might have been!). Or pharmacies denying other medications because it could potentially maybe be used for abortions. Or forcing a sixth-grader to bear her rapist’s child. Or why they’ll stand back as maternity wards close across red states.

They’re also comfortable with bearing false witness and proclaiming the abortion-rights side wants to abort babies after birth. Whereas if a faith-healing parent kills their child by withholding medical care, Republicans are fine with it. Heck, state Rep. Christy Perry says the kids meet God faster so why is there a problem? Why no, she does not apply that to abortion. Nor does Mississippi see a problem between insisting the fetus is a child and asserting pregnant women can’t get divorced because the fetus isn’t a child (courts can’t make decisions about a “speculative” child).

Let’s not forget that along with judges, prosecutors get involved too. Sure, the Ohio prosecutor who wanted to charge a woman for having a (legal) miscarriage but not disposing of the fetus properly has dropped the charges but he still put the woman through plenty of hell before deciding she hadn’t broken the law.

I’m with Planned Parenthood: nobody can be neutral right now. For more on abortion and the forced-birth movement feel free to buy Undead Sexist Cliches, available for Kindle, in paperback or other ebook formats. Cover by Kemp Ward, all rights remain with me.