You could smell the casket flowers on women’s reproductive rights in the US when former president Trump appointed a third judge to the Supreme Court to be joined at the conservative hip with his other two hard-right appointees. Ultra-conservatives now dominated the bench 6-3 for a lifetime tenure. On the Fox network in 2020, Trump said that with his young new Catholic appointee, “it is certainly possible” that Roe v Wade could be overturned: “She is certainly conservative in her views, in her rulings….Maybe they’d give it back to the states.”
Red state after red state, encouraged by a president who pushed their priorities, then passed extreme “fetal heartbeat” laws just waiting for Roe’s overturn that would impose prison sentences for women – and their doctors - who abort. Certainly the Trumpism age turned out a ‘war on women’ age given draconian anti-abortion laws were passed entirely by men who, in some states, did not even allow exemptions for rape or incest. Bizarrely, the Texas governor who banned abortions after just six weeks had an answer for that: he would “eliminate rapists” from his state (funny that because he never did so when he was the state’s attorney-general for 12 years).
Some lawmakers believed the abortion laws were so extreme it would go beyond what even a conservative Supreme Court would support. I guess a 17th century theological debate is a hard sell. Take the sponsor of Alabama’s anti-abortion bill who literally dropped to his knees to get his draconian law passed: “I prayed my way through this bill” (as you do in the country’s most evangelical stronghold). A Missouri lawmaker virtually dropped into the medieval age when he argued that no exemption be given to “consensual rape” (his twisted take on date rape), meaning a woman could potentially go to prison on how much alcohol she consumed and what she was wearing. It gets even more twisted: the day after Alabama passed pro-life legislation, the state executed death-row inmate Michael Samra. Therein lays a morality dilemma: how to square supporting pro-life against supporting pro-death!
Despite knowledge of these draconian laws, the Supreme Court went ahead anyway and handed to the states what they wanted: essentially religious control over women's lives. The court's ruling split the country into two America's, two neighborhoods (26 states have anti-abortion laws on their books). And two neighborhoods. As I wrote in America's Loveless Age, "a Texas abortion law empowers neighbors to sue neighbors for having an abortion (or anyone who aids and abets one) and is given a $10,000 bounty if the lawsuit is successful." As if the country wasn’t divided enough, this citizen vigilante order perversely encourages a Soviet-style system of spying on neighbors for monetary gain. Or an estranged boyfriend getting his own back and gleefully collecting $10,000 while his ex-girlfriend goes to jail.
So, why has it taken 50 years for Roe to be overturned? Like, why now? We get a hint as to why from Illinois Republican, Mary Miller, who let the cat out of the bag when she told a cheering crowd that overturning Roe was a “victory for white life”. In other words, a victory against vanishing whiteness since criminalizing abortion would mean more white babies potentially being born than babies born of the lesser populated but fast-growing minority groups (aka, economies of scale). Hence MAGA’s “tradwife” popular slogan “Make White Babies Great Again” as antidote to the “great replacement theory”, the racist ideology that alleges white people and their superior status are being covertly “replaced” by people of color?
But wouldn’t contraceptive access put a dint in that “theory”, you argue. Certainly, and that is probably why some state legislatures have introduced "trigger" bills to restrict access, waiting for the go-ahead from a regressive Supreme Court (Justice Clarence Thomas has suggested the court should re-examine the right to contraception and 195 House Republicans agreed when they voted against the right to birth control). It kind of shows that it’s not so much about the "murder" of a mindless embryo as manipulating the (white) procreative process as a buffer against the browning of America. Given today’s hyper-sexualized society, you can see the logic. In the pre-Roe pre-Pill pre-liberation 1950s, the average woman gave birth to more than three children, double what it is today. (Back to the Future: many of those pre-Roe children are today’s MAGA Trump fans).
Well, if ‘Back to the Future’ is the thinking it may well backfire given this standard biological fact: if women are to become ‘baby factories’, they first must have physical intimacy with men. But…..ahem…....we are in the Loveless Age. As one user of OkCupid’s 'pro-choice' app that helps singles weed out people they will likely clash with over abortion rights, put it: “I would never date someone who is not pro-choice. I want to be with someone who agrees that my body is my choice." The popular take-up of the app exemplifies the (loveless) fact that women are now wary of intimacy with men who back the party of forced childbirth. There is just too much at stake for women. Over the decades, Roe v. Wade allowed women to finish their education and pursue careers, along the way increasing their earning power to become economically independent. As Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told a Senate committee: “eliminating the right of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades.”
Not surprisingly, Republican Senator, Steve Daines (R-Mt), said he disagreed with Yellen's perspective and offered his own economic analysis: “I look at low birth rates and an aging population” he said, arguing that there are negative economic impacts from abortion. Daines is obviously bleating about women being too career-minded to have a brood of children as in the old days. In other words, fretting about the spectre of vanishing whiteness. Many of his Republican colleagues blame feminism for low marriage rates, and hence low birth rates. Perhaps they should get out more and rummage around in matchmaker sites for they will find that Trumpism is the real villain in pouring cold water on the marriage market. “Seeking Mr Right, no Trumpers please” is pretty much the mating ethos in these hyper-polarized Trumpian times.
Certainly the 2020 Census showed the white population was aging and had fallen to its smallest share of the total population on record (57.8%). While the millennial generation had surpassed the Baby Boomers in number and diversity, figures showed the under-age-18 population as minority white (49.6%). That a nation of white Christians is becoming a land of multiracial pluralism is no better illustrated than in the title of the Brookings Institute podcast ‘White decline and increased diversity in America’s aging population’ (October 1, 2021).
But where does it say that a career-minded woman cannot have a brood of children? Look at Queen Victoria who had more than a brood. Admittedly she did have a husband who pitched in and she out-sourced other help. But guess what, that is still the answer 170 years later – a ‘daddy-tracking’ helpmate husband plus a little out-sourced help that adds to the economy. Anyone familiar with my book will have read that many ambitious women who are the winners in today’s post-industrial economy, are recognizing their smartest career move is to Marry Down to helpmate “daddy trackers” (mostly offspring of feminist mothers and/or victims of post-industrial automation). As primary breadwinners, women are now calling the shots on how households vote, reversing the patriarchal trend that favored the party of the traditional family – the GOP (Democrats are predisposed to working women’s issues). Overall, it is in the GOP’s interest to not have women in the office smashing 'glass ceilings' but pregnant in the kitchen and dutifully voting the same way as conservative husbands (what I have called the tandem-vote). In other words, back to the Mad Men era of being economically dependent on a man.
All this is in keeping with the Christian nationalist 'New Right' movement that ties abortion to the perceived social ills of the age – the sexual revolution, women’s liberation, etc. In other words, abortion bans are about controlling women and punishing female sexuality, all in the name of dismantling gender equality. According to Katherine Stewart’s op-ed in The Guardian headlined How the Christian right took over the judiciary and changed America (June 25, 2022), “the Federalist Society [of] rightwing jurists…...has directed hundreds of millions of dollars [to] funnel ideologues to important judicial positions…...all six conservative justices on the supreme court are current or former members.” And? As Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of only three liberal SCOTUS judges, wrote in her dissent: “This court continues to dismantle the wall of separation between church and state.” Gulp.
Christian historian John Fea, author of Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump, gave pause for thought: “Many of these extreme Christian nationalists......want to take dominion over government, culture, economic life, religion, the family, education”. Wince. One can only shudder how a theocratic ‘dominion’ could turn out (if you have ever watched The Handmaid’s Tale from behind the sofa, you will know what I mean).
Good Post and book!