The United States Supreme Court announced the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 law that made abortion legal in the entire United States. I was not aware that many states already had in place laws that basically say, "We follow whatever the Federal laws are, so now abortion is illegal here too." I expected states to take time to make decisions.
Looking at maps provided by The Wall Street Journal and other media, I see the West Coast states will maintain legal abortion, some on the Eastern seaboard that we call New England, and there is a smattering also of states that will continue to provide services.
This article from The Guardian is excellent with details and a map: THE GUARDIAN WORLD: ABORTION DESERTS MAP CLINICS
If you are pregnant and especially if you are poor, you will be forced to endure, possibly die, or pull off travel to another state for an abortion and this article above estimates just how many miles that might be; sometimes a 12 hour trip. (If you're reading this in another country, perhaps think of this is a pregnant woman having to go to another country where she does not have medical insurance to pay for the abortion. She must come up with travel, lodging, and cash for the operation, possibly taking time off from work or caring for her existing children too. She may have to go alone and recover alone as well.)
I know this will be impossible for many women in these states and so they will go back to the dangers of illegal abortion, with some actually facing prison for doing so. This is barbaric and so we have Supreme Court Justices who are barbaric. It's a fact : They are Republicans. Recently someone pointed out to me that the honored President Abraham Lincoln was Republican. Well, the party has changed. They don't make Republicans like they used to. I frankly think that many of us are suffering the double whamy of a Trump Presidency and Covid-19.
Sometimes I just don't think anti-abortion protesters are facing reality. One pregnancy in five in the United States was terminated in 2020. Nature intended sex and nature intended pregnancy. Nature does not pay the rent.
ASSOCIATED PRESS Excerpt : The report from the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights, counted more than 930,000 abortions in the U.S. in 2020.
This number was up from the previous year: Covid 19 likely had something to do with this. Women/ families/the nation were facing economic pressures due to lay offs and financial uncertainty. (And so were the men involved, at least the ones who were responsible.)
Today we see that violence has erupted, that there are absolutely murderous anti-abortion people out there who belong in prison. Deep irony in that.
The conflict is between the idealists and the realists. The idealists depend on a mythological past we cannot go back to and probably don't want to go back to if we could.
I say, end all sex trafficking. End rape. End forced marriage.
Make all wages paid out livable income - better yet income that will provide for as many children as nature intends because nature is a bitch and does not care if women die like they used to, worn out from pregnancy and birthing and caring for all those children.
Make sure that all children are born into healthy, stable, and sane partnerships in which one partner does not have to earn income and can stay at home to raise the children, even home-school them. Make sure that no parent dies before all their children are adults who are self-supporting.
While you're at it, make sure there is no sex until marriage and all marriages are made in heaven and last.
Make sure that everyone who wants to go to college can and that there are appropriate jobs for all those college educated people.
Oh, and by the way, make sure everyone is a Christian, preferably a fundamentalist.
You, my reader either already know what I'm saying or you get it.
This is NOT the world we live in, not our reality.
There are very many issues to address and so much change that is needed but these last few years have been especially challenging and difficult. It's not that abortion is a sacrament, it's that only women -those who have wombs - can become pregnant and have abortions and so very much work and responsibility is on us. We are vulnerable.
Missy
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