USA Today reports on the likely consequences if Roe v. Wade is overturned.
The conclusions:
•Twenty-two state legislatures are likely to impose significant new restrictions on abortion. They include nearly every state in the South and a swath of big states across the industrial Rust Belt, from Pennsylvania to Ohio and Michigan. These states have enacted most of the abortion restrictions now allowed…
•Sixteen state legislatures are likely to continue current access to abortion. They include every state on the West Coast and almost every state in the Northeast…
•Twelve states fall into a middle ground between those two categories. About half are in the Midwest, the rest scattered from Arizona to Rhode Island.
…All but four of the states likely to maintain access to abortion voted for Democrat John Kerry.
I take these analyses with a grain of salt. I suspect that the overturning of Roe v. Wade would significantly alter the political balance in the country…and not in favor of the anti-choice crowd. One indication that the GOP will be punished is polling. After Bush’s reelection, the LA Times asked what kind of Supreme Court nominations Bush should make:
59 percent say Bush should choose a nominee who would uphold the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. About three in 10, 31 percent, said they want a nominee who would overturn the decision, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.”
Even with a strong majority of Americans opposing overturning Roe, a majority of politicians in many state legislative bodies have a different position. For example:
In fact, 63 of the 99 members of the Ohio House are committed, if Roe is overturned, to support a state ban on abortions except those needed to save the life of the woman. (Seven members add exceptions in cases of rape and incest.)
Another indicator is the polling for Governor Mike Rounds before and after he signed the anti-choice legislation in South Dakota. Rounds had a 72%-23% approval rating before he signed the legislation. Afterwards, his numbers fell to 58%-38%.
Politicians respond to polls. The anti-choice position has been working for the GOP. But it has been working because their activists are more motivated. Most Americans take reproductive rights for granted because they are constitutionally guaranteed. When they discover that those guarantees no longer exist, the intensity of reproductive rights advcocates will match, or perhaps even exceed, the intensity we currently see from the far right.
For these reasons, I don’t expect twenty-two states to “impose significant new restrictions on abortion”. Nevertheless, moving backwards on reproductive rights will erode the quality and accessibility of care for women all across the country. It will also expand the number of political offices where a stance on abortion is really relevant, thereby increasing the political polarization over the issue.
I think that’s right: the reality of a return to criminalizing choice will change the political landscape, and not in favor of the GOP or the right. Far too many pro-choicers have deluded themselves that they don’t have to worry about politics because the courts will protect them. The shock when it fails to do so will be painful but healthy for the body politic. I think the first result will be shocked anger, then action to finally dump the nutcase Right back to whatever century they belong in.
I don’t think USA Today has their facts correct. There is no need for new laws in many states, Alabama for one has dozens of laws on the books restricting and banning legal abortion. Many of them will take effect again as soon as the Supreme Court removes the unconstitutional label. I suspect that the number of states that have at one time or another passed abortion restrictions is higher than 22.
That’s the point where we pack up our PG gal and get her to some country that values intelligent women.
That’s our line- the possibility of a real life for our daughter. What’s yours?
…efforts to impose restrictions on abortion. Most probably won’t be as bad as South Dakota’s in that they will have some outs for health, incest and rape. But they will draw these exceptions narrowly. In most of those states the anti-choice forces won’t have to put forth much effort; they’ll have legislative Democrats (like SD’s Julie Bartling or Alabama’s Steve Holland) as well as most of the Republicans on their side.
So they will focus their attention, energy and money on the most vulnerable of the other 28 states – or 30, whatever – where such laws aren’t immediately pushed through. Those of us who live in California or New York or even Colorado probably won’t see the anti-choicers coming around right away – they’ll work on the easier cases first.
If Roe goes down, we’re going to have our hands full.
However, I think it’ll take one more conservative justice being appointed before Roe can be reversed. Another 1007 days of Bush in office to make that happen.
the Democrats regain control of the Senate (assuming the new Senators aren’t Bill Casey clones), any conservative judge won’t make it past the Judiciary Committee…
That’s why the rumors that Jeb Bush may resign his governorship and take Katherine Harris’ place in running against Bill Nelson scare the bejeezus out of me…we need to gain seats, not lose them…
I just started reading “How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America — Freedom, Politics & The War On Sex”, by Cristina Page. [Basic Books, 2006, ISBN 0-465-05489-7]. It starts out with a litany of incidents similar to Indylib’s diary “It’s Not About The Babies”, of pharmacists denying birth control and EC to women. On page 6, speaking of these pharmacists:
A little further on, the mission statement of the American Life League (A.L.L.) is given:
So as well as overturning Roe v. Wade, the anti-choice crowd wants to turn back the clock to when birth control was illegal. Scary stuff if you have daughters or granddaughters.
And look at the implications. Be predisposed to welcoming children… And paying for them, because there’s no social security for you, “welfare moms”. In other words, not only do they want people to not have sex for pleasure, but they want married couples to be kept destitute, because they can’t have sex without opening the door to more children.
Speaking of South Dakota, I had an opportunity to dine with my nieces in-laws, who are from South Dakota and staunch (but not rabid) Republicans. Her mother-in-law made an unprovoked (by me or anyone else) tirade against the new law as discriminatory against women. She’s old enough to recall that discrimination. We may underrate the strength of that old populist sentiment because the anti-sex (let’s call it for what it is) crazies get more play in the press.
We need to contribute to getting the SD law on the ballot in November. Lots about that effort here. Because, even in South Dakota, majorities don’t want their legislators getting them labeled wackos before the world, this has some realistic chance of setting back the forced pregnancy movement.
Not that they won’t keep on coming somewhere — they hate and fear sex.
And if anyone hasn’t read the cover story from 2 weeks ago’s NYT Magazine on El Salvador, a nation which fully criminalizes abortion, please take a read here.