It should come as no surprise that the anti-choice, anti-freedom, anti-abortion, forced birth crowd is feeling pretty good these days, especially as the elevation of Brett The Liar Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is giving them wet dreams of overturning Roe v. Wade.Six states have enacted so-called "heartbeat bills" that ban abortions, with very few exceptions, once a fetal heartbeat can be detected - which is usually at about six weeks, a point before which most women even know they are pregnant. Four of those six - Ohio, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Georgia - have passed such laws this year.
It should be noted that none of these laws have gone into effect: Kentucky's, which was to go into effect immediately, has been blocked in federal court. Mississippi's is intended to go into effect July 1, Ohio's July 10, and Georgia's January 1, 2020 - and all three are certain to be blocked by suits in federal district court because they so obviously conflict with Roe v. Wade. But of course the point is not to get them in force immediately - supporters know they will lose in lower courts - but to get one or more of them before the Supreme Court.
Still, it does seem that each is vying to be the most restrictive and to be the one that makes it to SCOTUS and so obtains the glory of being the one that results in Roe being overturned and thus the return of back-alley abortions.
For example, last November, a federal judge ruled Mississippi's ban on abortion after 15 weeks was unconstitutional - and the state responded by banning it after six weeks and adding that a physician who performs an abortion after that time could lose their state medical license.
The Ohio law not only bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, it provides no exceptions for rape or incest.
In Georgia, the law extends the legal definition of "natural persons" to include the fetus once a heartbeat is detectable, which means that women who have abortions after six weeks along with those who perform them could be prosecuted for murder. Even if the woman goes to a different state where the procedure is legal, she could be charged with conspiracy to commit murder, punishable by 10 years in prison.
And don’t wave that off like it can’t happen because it already has. In 2015, in Georgia, a woman named Kenlissia Jones was prosecuted for "malice murder" for taking an abortion pill. The charges were only dropped when prosecutors had to admit that there was no provision in state law allowing for such prosecution. If this new bill were to become law, there would be.
The Alabama legislation is perhaps the most extreme, as it seeks to outlaw abortion outright. It bans all abortions in the state except when "necessary to prevent a serious health risk" to the woman. It classifies abortion as a Class A felony, punishable by up to 99 years in prison for doctors. It does say a woman who gets an abortion can't be prosecuted, but also makes no exceptions for victims or rape or incest.
Overall four states passed such laws this year, but similar bills have been introduced in 13 more and some are moving through state legislatures.For example, in Missouri, a bill banning abortion after eight weeks has been approved by the state Senate - with no exceptions for rape, incest, or human trafficking. A doctor who performs an abortion after that point could be charged with a felony and face up to 15 years in prison.
But Ohio has a new twist: Following on its "heartbeat bill," the legislature is considering a bill to bar insurance companies from covering abortion services unless the procedure is necessary to save the woman’s life. The bill defines this kind of abortion as a “nontherapeutic abortion,” which “includes drugs or devices used to prevent the implantation of a fertilized ovum.”
This is important: By that definition, using the pill is abortion. Using an IUD is abortion. Use the patch, use the ring, it's all abortion under this proposed law.
There have long been warnings, too often ignored or dismissed, that this issue would not end at abortion; that even if the anti-choice bigots got their way and abortion was outlawed in every state, they would not be satisfied but they would come after birth control next.
Admittedly, some of the effects of this proposed Ohio law are the result of an astonishing level of ignorance about the biology of human reproduction and the very basics of how something like the pill works, but the blunt truth is that a fair about is due to ideology.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pointed to that, noting that abortion bans "aren't just about controlling women's bodies. They're about controlling women's sexuality. Owning women. Ultimately, this is about women's power. When women are in control of their sexuality, it threatens a core element underpinning right-wing ideology: patriarchy."
Exactly. Ultimately, this is not about abortion. That is the current and necessary battlefield, but it’s not the war.
It's not even about birth control. But AOC is too limiting when she says it's about women's sexuality or controlling women's sexuality. It's about more. It's about controlling women's entire lives, controlling their options, limiting their choices. It is about too many men - and, let it be said, a not inconsiderable number of women - looking for a world of Stepford wives (if you're anywhere near AOC's age, look it up) and barefoot and pregnant homilies.
It is about, ultimately, people so rigid and narrow in their thinking, so trapped in their presumptions, so fearful, indeed so terrified, of the future, that they are striving to undo decades of social change and social progress because that's where their ideology, one based on an inability to deal with change, leads them.
Abortion is the current battlefield, but that is the war.
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