Blame the Woman, Again

_{The draft reveals many things about our society and the place of gender in decision making, but at its root it is yet another affront to women‘s rights in this country. Vice President Kamala Harris demanded in her remarks at a gala for Emily’s List, “How dare they?!”}

_{She continued, “Some Republican leaders are trying to weaponize the use of the law against women. How dare they tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body. How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future. How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms.”}

_{Jarrett Renshaw, writing in Reuters, says, “Experts estimate that about one in four women will obtain an abortion in her lifetime, of whom 75% are low-income, 59% are already mothers, and 55% are experiencing disruptive life events such as losing a job.”}

_{Alito eviscerates Roe, arguing that the 1973 abortion rights ruling was “ill-conceived” and “deeply flawed,” and invented a right mentioned nowhere in the Constitution and that unwisely sought to wrench the contentious issue away from the political branches of government. Does this argument imply that rights in the 21st century must be explicitly stated in a document written more than 200 years ago? What about contraception, interracial marriage, marriage equality? There are countless medical, scientific and cultural developments that are part of our current way of life that did not exist during our nation’s founding.}

_{But the real issue here is the lack of empathy on the part of the court’s majority for the rights of women and how they are treated by our judicial system. There is no exception in this draft for rape or incest. There is no quarter given to the lived experience of poor or marginalized women who are suddenly presented with limitations on their bodily autonomy—limitations, it must be said, overwhelmingly decided by male legislators.}

_{We can deflect this development with sidebar arguments about the source of the leak, or the deception on the power of precedent as championed by those who “auditioned” for the position of Supreme Court Justice, or we can talk about the half century of organizing efforts among Republicans who sought to overturn Roe v. Wade. But all this pales before what this decision, as portrayed in the 98-page leak, says about a woman’s right to control her own body and its implicit racism and classism that leaves poor women and women of color even further marginalized.}

_{It is not as if the role of women in our society has not been in the headlines of late. The #MeToo movement demonstrated how notoriously women in the workplace have been demeaned and dismissed. During the pandemic, we were in awe of the courage displayed by “essential workers,” so many of whom are women. And when our schools closed, countless moms added the extraordinary responsibilities from teaching IT to serving as mental health counselors for their kids as Covid shuttered our schools for months at a time. And yet, as a society, we still fail to fully empathize with women or support them at the most basic level—the freedom to fully determine their future. Instead, as this draft leak reveals, they are forced to relinquish control over their bodies to (again, mostly male) legislators who often have political agendas that lie far beyond what is best for women and families. We are staring into a future of government ordered pregnancies.}

_{Procreative sex involves two participants—male and female. Yet the upcoming Supreme Court decision alleged in this draft leak places responsibility for an unwanted pregnancy solely on the woman. What about the man? What price is paid for his involvement in the act that created the fetus? What is a woman to do? Those who are privileged will find a way to work around the gutting of Roe, but those who cannot afford to take time off from work, or who have no access to expensive transportation or who cannot, for a myriad of reasons, navigate the often labyrinthian health care system in this country, will be left to carry a pregnancy to term because government officials declare that she must. Forced pregnancies will become the law of the land. We have not even begun to consider the unintended consequences of this Supreme Court decision.}

_{One of the bedrock principles of conservative thought is that “big government” should not invade the private lives of individuals. The question this leaked draft begs is whether this principle applies only to men. In one of the most personal decisions a woman can make, the Supreme Court has now removed an option that has been a constitutional right for half a century and determined that if she becomes pregnant, she must carry the government mandated pregnancy to term. Once again, we have made women bear the brunt of our social contract in a deadly disproportional way.}