Margaret Atwood, in an article for the Guardian, argues that enforced childbirth is slavery. (If that sounds too extreme, call it reproductive oppression.) When seen in the light of the current struggle between government control of reproduction and reproductive freedom, Abraham Lincoln’s famous “House Divided” speech again becomes relevant.
"A house divided against itself cannot stand."
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided.
It will become all one thing or all the other.
Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new -- North as well as South.
In one of greatest gaffes of all time Mitch McConnell signaled that if the Republicans take control of the Federal government, they can ban abortion nationwide. Trying to reverse this blunder, he now claims that the GOP wouldn’t actually be able to achieve this goal because of the filibuster. But by now everybody knows McConnell’s favorite motto: Filibuster for thee; but not for me. He got three right wing zealots on the court by nuking the filibuster; if he can, he’ll ban abortion nationwide by nuking the filibuster again.
So the GOP will try to change the subject. The “horror” of the leak hasn’t gotten enough traction to silence their abortion rights adversaries, so they are turning back to “the states will decide.” But there, they will be faced with a spate of trigger laws.
Over the last decade Red states have been passing increasingly extreme trigger laws designed to go into effect when Roe is overturned. These states have competed with one another to see who can come up with a law the provides the most punishment and fewest exceptions. Several states have no exceptions for rape and incest. The health of the mother seems to be forgotten almost altogether.
This spiral into depravity may not be completely over. Idaho Republican gubernatorial candidate Janice McGeachin has demanded that Republican Gov Little immediately call a special legislative session to eliminate rape and incest as exceptions to Idaho’s trigger law. And The Hill reports that several other Red states are planning special sessions to beef up their already extreme antiabortion laws.
The public has mostly ignored these laws. Perhaps most people believed that Roe was settled law. The authors of these laws might as well have written “when the little green people from Mars land on Earth,” rather than “when Roe is overturned.” Most people simply ignored these strange laws, if they even knew about them in the first place.
Now that Roe is gone, and more and more people know what the antiabortionists have in mind, will the tide finally turn? This fight will not end until reproductive freedom is everywhere.