Freedom of Choice at Stake

Roe v. Wade may go the way of the dodo very soon. The Guardian's What will US’s future look like if abortion becomes a crime again? reports on the potential changes and what those changes could well mean.

It’s like a thought experiment – to think about what ‘Call Jane’ would look like,” in the modern era, said Cynthia Conti-Cook, a technology fellow with the Ford Foundation. Her work in gender, racial and ethnic justice explores how law enforcement could use the data produced by digital infrastructure – phones, internet browsers, social media – to prosecute people who seek or aid abortions, should Roe v Wade be overturned, and the procedure become illegal in some states once again.

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 The nation’s preeminent association for defense attorneys has also published a report ahead of the oral arguments that lays out a future in which the US could undertake “rampant criminalization” and “mass incarceration on an unprecedented scale” in the name of the unborn.

“States are laying the groundwork now, and have been laying the groundwork for criminal penalties that are completely different,” than the pre-Roe era, said Lindsay A Lewis, a criminal defense attorney in New York who co-authored a report on abortion for the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys (NACDL), the first such report in the organization’s history.

“They are so much more advanced, and so much harsher than what existed before Roe was enacted.”

 All this comes from relying on the Supreme Court, ignoring state politics in favor of federal elections, and giving up on the constitutional process of amendment. Ah, but amending the Constitution takes time, local efforts and be defeated.

Look at how the court has become politicized on just this issue. The same effort could have been put into amending the Constitution. Abortion rights would not depend on the votes of five Supreme Court Justices.

The anti-choice crowd organized locally to get compliant state legislatures. Doing so let them portray themselves as the more democratic political movement. They were seen as defending against the tyranny of Washington. Why did not the pro-choice activists not do more to gain control of state legislatures?

If the pro-choice argument is that it is so easy to defeat a constitutional amendment, then are not saying that they have no popular support for abortion rights? That not even the majority of women support freedom to control their own bodies? I cannot believe they lack the faith to even try.

Let me pass on this language, for this (obviously) has been on my mind:

Neither the federal government nor any state government shall require any woman to bear or not bear any child.

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