Now it’s out in the open that the SCOTUS Gang of Six is planning to take away reproductive rights, and is obviously drooling at the prospect of completely dismembering every other aspect of the United States that doesn’t directly service the finances of the corporate oligarchs, and egos of the Party of Bigots and Imbeciles (hereinafter, PB&I —aka Republicans). Unsurprisingly, Americans disapprove of this program by large to overwhelming majorities. So what can be done? So far, not very much, it seems. One legislative fix has already failed, and there is little prospect that future legislative remedies will meet better fates.
Recently, I heard a brilliant idea on one of my “lefty” podcasts: President Biden should make abortion free on all US military bases. Credit for the idea goes to the Professional Left (https://professionalleft.blogspot.com/). Listen to Ep. 649: Blue Gal @ 27:00 into the podcast. Driftglass and Blue Gal also credit Elie Mystal who has also argued for using the military real estate to protect women’s rights to an abortion. On June 7, 25 Senators wrote a letter to President Biden asking him to avail himself of his executive powers to ensure access to abortion, including having the Department of Defense “assessing the feasibility” of protecting access for military families.
If President Biden were to go through with using our military assets to protect women (which he should), he would probably need to cite some sort of military-esque rationale. Actually one exists, and a very basic one: the fanatical pronatalism of the Gang of Six, their oligarch funders, and the PB&I represents a clear and present threat of near-term extinction of the human species, and by extension, of all citizens of the United States. The Pentagon is already well aware of this; see All Hell Breaking Loose
As is generally known, the struggle to limit climate catastrophe is not going well. While scientists unanimously call for limiting greenhouse gases, the production of those gases is rapidly rising. The biodiversity crisis continues to grow worse, as does almost every other measure of environmental and social well-being. In fact, the only semi-bright spot in this otherwise dreary picture is the gradual leveling and slight decline of human overpopulation, driven almost by increases in women’s abilities to access health care and to have the right to control their own bodies. This last is what the Gang of Six, and their world-wide imitators are planning to undo.
Using the military to make abortion available to women will both give immediate protection to women, and clearly establish that legalistic sophistry will not be allowed to trump (if I may use that expression) the survival of the human race and the biosphere. The ‘Alito Screech’ does not just target abortion rights but lines up rights to contraception, rights to marry, and rights to education for future invitations to the PB&I to eliminate (with the Gang of Six gleefully bulldozing away any legal precedents and impediments).
Unfortunately the Washington Worrywart class seems to have decided that the PB&I can block virtually any executive action Biden could take to protect abortion. I don’t see that as a problem with making women’s health available on military bases: Joe Biden can simply order it as Commander in Chief of the armed forces. There is a rich variety of legal precedents that the military can do what they want wherever they want. Most of the time recently, it’s been illegal, destructive, expensive, and inept. Supporting women’s health would an abrupt but positive change of direction.