The Naked Truth/Jamala Rogers
R U 4 Reproductive Justice?
No matter how many times it happens, I am still amazed, then outraged at the attacks on abortion rights. I’m talking about the obsession of old, white men with the bodies of child-bearing women. Women who assert control over our bodies find it repulsive that our rights to control our bodies get criminalized. A decision about our bodies then becomes the courts’ business. The latest ruling is unprecedented in that it’s the first time a judge has unilaterally taken a drug off the market in the face of the Federal Food and Drug Administration’s objections.
A Texas judge now claims to be concerned about women’s health and the safety of mifepristone. Mifepristone is one part of the abortion drug duo known as the abortion pill. It is taken in tandem with the drug, misoprostol. First popularized as RU-486, women have used Misoprex as a safe and effective way to end an early pregnancy for twenty years. Before its distribution in the U.S., the drug was safely and widely used in Europe.
The ruling also means that the medication can no longer be sent by mail. The GOP-driven mandate to end all forms of abortion is now beyond the clinic walls; it seeks to end or curtail any other method women have at their disposal, including out-of-state options. This will even affect states with existing abortion access. The court interference could force services to go underground. We should expect that any attempt to get the medication illegally will come with harsh penalties.
The Texas case was filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom. Don’t be fooled by the progressive sounding name. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists ADF as a hate group. This is the group that helped to write the Mississippi law to overturn Roe v. Wade last year. It seems to have a thing about what goes on in people’s bedrooms, particularly in the LGBTQ+ communities. It holds the backward belief that homosexuality is synonymous with pedophilia and should be a crime.
Continuing to connect the dots, the U.S. district judge who is carrying out the Republican agenda is Matthew Kacsmaryk, a trump appointee. Following the modus operandi of the right — this judge has done an overreach with his decision that could effectively end the second most used abortion method. These folks blatantly abuse power because they can.
Abortion rights advocates and their allies will be keeping a sharp eye on SCOTUS to see what its next move will be. I have no faith in those folks so I’m suggesting that people continue to organize in their states. Defenders of reproductive rights are part of the defenders of democracy. We have our work cut out for us this year if 2024 is to be radically different from what we’re experiencing right now.
