Addendum added below 6/24/22 on places to send your money now that Roe is gone, scroll down to find it. This piece was originally written in the wake of the Alito opinion leak.
Hello, my friend. You may know that the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v Wade, 50 years after it passed.
Here’s what I wrote, for myself more than anyone, after Lizelle Herrera was charged with murder and held on a $500,000 bond for ending her pregnancy. This was in Texas, less than a month ago:
To involve the state in this way to curtail people’s liberties around pregnancy and its termination — two of the most ancient processes in human history — holds really dark implications. It’s fascistic in itself but also a very good predictor of sharp increase in future fascism.
It seems like we’ll likely lose Roe, which would give us a country of red states of forced birth and blue states of reproductive self-determination. Which is fundamentally what we already have in place, thanks to dogged legislative and cultural work from the right.
So the loss to women’s and queer people’s rights and freedoms would both be immense and also not terribly new. Imagine, if you will, losing a loved one after a long struggle with neurodegenerative illness; the long slow loss happens before the sudden final loss, and robs it of (narrative) impact.
If Roe falls, cases like Obergefell (marriage equality), Griswold (access to contraceptives), and Lawrence (queer sex) become newly vulnerable — and those cases also have been recently named as unwanted examples of “judicial activism” by Republican lawmakers and now, Supreme Court justices. This, in the context of the numerous legislative attacks on trans youth, in the context of the near-identical statehouse bills that would criminalize abortion at 6 weeks, all of this, is the state showing its hand.
The glove is organized evangelical Christianity and 1950s family values, the hand within is fascism and white nationalism.
To build a fascist society, you need to embrace fully and openly the idea that there should be in-groups the law protects and does not bind, and out-groups the law binds but does not protect. Making clear who the in-groups and out-groups are, and eroding public support for the rights of the out-groups, is the visible ramp to the highway of the totalitarian state.
So what we are seeing are efforts from people who seek to control the full apparatus of the state, making something very clear.
Anyway.
What to do?
As with anything, it depends on who you are, and who, in Fannie Lou Hamer’s framing, your people are.
Don’t despair or give in to numbness. Ask yourself: what are your convictions about this? Why do you hold them?
Be a part of building power that can be marshaled in moments of crisis, that is capable of making plans for crisis. This is the most important thing. A union, a political group, a (politicized) mutual aid group. Your local mutual aid, as an aside, should have some form of healthcare access (including reproductive healthcare) working groups, if they don’t already.
Make visible that you care about this; speak about what it means to you openly.
Take to the streets as you can, to rage against this absolute crock of shit, to fight for reproductive rights protected by and codified into law, and an expanded Supreme Court.
Make a plan for what you’ll do if someone you care about needs to terminate a pregnancy. It’ll look different based on what state you live in. Have a plan beyond mifepristone (pills) if you live in a red state. On April 14th, Tennessee House Republicans approved criminal penalties for anyone distributing abortion medication through telehealth or mail services, making it punishable by a fine up to $50,000. If it passes, more states will follow suit. As an aside, 9 times out of 10, when I say make a plan, I mean, make a plan with your people.
If you live in a (currently) blue state, a) don’t be cocky b) move in solidarity with people who don’t, who are going to get fucked over so badly by this. See the appendix below for places to give your money.
Remember that abortion is ancient and abortion is needed and abortion is popular. It does not technically require doctors or legal sanction. It requires the widespread dissemination of certain kinds of knowledge and it requires money. These are things we can work on.
Some reading:
Handbook for A Post-Roe America by Robin Marty (book)
The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade. by Ann Fessler (book)
Stop Being Stupid About Abortion by Charlotte Shane (essay)
What Is White Replacement Theory? interview in NPR (WRT-related anxiety is part of what’s powering the engine of coordinated-behind-the-scenes coalitional campaigns from the right on abortion)
American Christianity’s White Supremacy Problem by Michael Luo (essay)
4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days (narrative film set in Ceaucescu’s Romania)
*Quiverfull is small and fringe, but the basic logic of evangelical Christian patriarchy it adheres to is widely present in families in large swaths of the country. The far right that is in bed with the Christofascists is…essentially interested in undermining everything that isn’t straight Christian marriage with a wife who is “fruitful” and economically and otherwise governed by her husband’s “headship.” They play the long game, and today was part of it.
I reread what I’ve written and it sounds like I am calm, not angry.
My blood is curdling with white-hot rage. :) :) :)
Our day will come. Our day will come. Our day will come.
Until then.
Appendix added 6/24/22, the day Roe was struck down by an illegitimate, fascist, fundamentalist court that has all but promised (as predicted) to come next for contraception, gay sex, and marriage equality.
On places to send your money in the white-hot moment. Get your friends together, pool money, and coordinate splitting it. I’m being serious. Doing it together is a muscle you have to build.
Mutual aid: Local abortion funds in the following states: Arizona, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Louisiana, South Dakota. As of today, all abortion is illegal in these states, with no exceptions. That means that every impoverished person, every rape survivor, every abused twelve-year-old, needs to travel to a blue state to terminate their pregnancy. Take the extra time to donate to the funds individually versus going to National, so you can make sure the cash has the largest possible chance of going directly to a person in one of these states.
Sorry, but the DLCC. From a harm reduction point of view*, if a state legislature turns red, you’ve lost the right to reproductive care there. Donate to the fucking DLCC’s States To Save Roe campaign. If chambers in Michigan, New Hampshire, and Minnesota flip, you will be helping preserve abortion access for millions of people, not just in these states, but the red-states-residents coming to them in desperation.
Abolish the Senate, or make it more favorable to protecting repro rights. In the absence of ov*rthr*w*ng the g word, here is the math / intel. Vulnerable seats we absolutely need to hold: Warnock (GA), Masto (NV), Kelly (AZ), Hassan (NH), Bennet (CO). Challengers for Republican-held seats we can win, in order of feasibility: Fetterman (PA), Barnes (WI), Demings (FL), Ryan (OH), Beasley (NC), Franken (IA). (Thank you to N for help with this list.)
Set aside an amount you plan to give over the course of the year to online GoFundMes — abortion funds will hit their limits and some people will be left in desperate situations.
*Yes I have read the voting is not harm reduction pieces and their arguments are 1. at least a little specious 2. barely apply if you are not living in a bright blue state and considering voting / not voting in a presidential election. Anyway this is about money to get people to vote. Sorry babes! I’m right! Shut up!
What I’d add now to the column up top, while standing by everything I wrote earlier:
Say out loud: I will aid and abet abortion.
This ruling is a tremendous boon to the prison-industrial complex and policing; a huge increase in education efforts around rights and warnings targeted to ordinary people (including those not on social media) needs to follow. Setting up that education work needs to happen.
This is about the criminalization of pregnancy, people. Emergency trainings need to happen in hospitals and clinics throughout the country on the importance of not informing law enforcement / not cooperating with law enforcement (It’s an abject violation of privacy and also, first do no fucking harm!!!!!). This education mobilization is starting but it needs to go much much further and quicker.
Effective cultural, artistic, storytelling, etc work around bodily autonomy has never been more essential, particularly work that can puncture the bubble of those not already converted. My recently pro-life family member (I’m devastated) balked when I asked them point blank if they believed the people we know who’ve had abortions should go to jail, and finally said no, etc. Most people’s minds are capable of being changed, even slightly.
The right’s cultural work around Obergefell (gay marriage) etc has begun. Right now it’s trans panic and the groomer debate. Don’t be a useful idiot, don’t fucking fall for it. Move in solidarity, think in terms of power and coalition. H pointed out to me that the next battlefield for the right to bodily autonomy is trans healthcare; many are treating this like a fringe issue instead of an interconnected one that will inform the larger legal landscape. Once again: don’t be a useful idiot to the right. Here’s a place to send $ (that Ariana Grande is matching lol).
I texted C and H early this morning, and said. “I love you. We got us. Remember that the long future is unaccountable, antiknowable.” I stand by it. There is always hope, until the end.
-STM