The Supreme Court decision in Dobbs is vile, invasive, and wrong.
It is vile because it represents the culmination of years of political gaslighting from Republican Supreme Court nominees (who simply lied to Congress with no consequence) abetted by naked hypocrisy from Republican leaders who have gamed our political system to entrench conservative minority rule and attack women’s rights.
It is invasive because with the stroke of a pen, millions of women have had their reproductive care and their personal liberty subject to criminalization by the Court simply because of the state they live in.
Everything surrounding pregnancy and reproductive care for all American women is now the subject of potential investigation and criminalization. (Even a simple pregnancy test to access a necessary non-reproductive health procedure is now fraught with peril in some states.)
Dobbs is also simply wrong because the Supreme Court has broken with a clear 50 years of precedent set in Roe, and affirmed in Casey (decisions made by Republican-appointed majorities, btw) in order to strip federally-protected constitutional rights women have held for 50 years.
Far from being “conservative,” Dobbs reverses a protected national right, and replaces it with the vagaries of local politics. If a woman lives in a state where the religious right dominates political life, her right to abortion care she has been able to access for 50 years has been abandoned by the United States Supreme Court. There is now no federally-protected right to an abortion in any circumstance.
In nine states, this criminalization of abortion is effective immediately, with 12 states likely to follow, and with harrowing uncertainty for women’s rights in a further nine states.
In some states, clinics are simply shutting down and telling women to go home.
And in the face of these developments, far right Conservatives are celebrating in the streets.
As Linda Greenhouse wrote, this decision is a requiem for the US Supreme Court, and anyone who has followed it for the last half century knows how brutal and vile its fall has been.
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There is one political reality I’d like to highlight in this moment. And it’s an action item.
Local politics in all 50 states will now focus on abortion rights. This is a 50 state battle, and every vote, every local elected official must be held accountable.
The state laws around abortion in all 50 states are now crucial. They all matter.
I agree with the national strategy of making the 2022 and 2024 Congressional and Presidential elections a referendum on this court and the future direction of this nation.
But it is also so important, especially in states where abortion rights will now be an open question, for Democrats and allies to rally around preserving and passing the best laws possible.
What happens in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina is so crucial, not just to women in those states, but to our overall project of winning back a federally protected right to abortion care and reproductive rights in all 50 states.
And to fight those local battles, organizations like Sister District and Supermajority very much deserve your consideration for support. I’d also recommend donating to state parties directly, and to the Democratic Governor’s Association and the DLCC, as well.
We need to fight hard, and to fight smart in the political battles to come, and these donations will go directly to the front lines, where it counts.
