How SCOTUS's Decision to Overturn Roe v. Wade Will Affect You and Your Family

This isn't a "woman's issue." It's your issue. Here's why.

In the event you are just now surfacing from a drug-induced coma (if so, you are to be envied), a draft opinion drawn up by ultraconservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to the press two nights ago confirming that the Court intends to overturn 1973 abortion legislation Roe v. Wade.

This is remarkable for several reasons:

1. This would be the first time in the history of the United States that a Constitutional right will have been taken away from the American people.

2. This is the first time in American history that a Supreme Court draft opinion has been leaked to the press.

3. Overturning Roe v. Wade vacates a decision the Court itself made twice, first when the original ruling was issued in 1973, and then again in 1992 with Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which calls into question the judgment of its own institution and our trust in same.

4. This ruling will take a sledgehammer to the idea that the Supreme Court is an impartial, non-religious, non-political body. According to recent polls, the court’s approval ratings are the lowest they’ve ever been. No longer can we continue deluding ourselves that the Court operates impartially or without personal bias.

Seven-in-ten Americans say they do not want to see Roe v. Wade overturned. That’s a clear majority. And while it is not incumbent upon the Court to let popular opinion influence its decision making, ripping away the Constitutional right to safe, legal abortion doesn’t signify independence of the judiciary. If anything, it’s the opposite. We’re talking minority rule. We’re talking about a proto-fascist dictatorship where women’s baby-making organs have become property of the state.

The delicious irony, of course, is that this ruling is being ballyhooed by the same folks who kept shouting about mask wearing as “government overreach.”

Don’t try to reason with them, by the way. This isn’t about being fair, or reasonable, or whatever the opposite of ragingly hypocritical is. It’s about the power to control and subdue women. Especially the power to control and subdue poor women of color, who will be disproportionately affected by this ruling. Middle-class white women will always have the means to travel out of state to obtain abortions. At $750 per, they can actually pay for one. But how many single mothers and/or women who live in poverty can afford to go to states like California or Nevada to receive reproductive healthcare services?

In addition to exsanguinating the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court is now prepared to reinstate Jim Crow, only with a coat hanger.

How does this affect you and why should you care?

The views I’m about to express are not only based on historical precedent, they are shared by many legal experts who see the overturning of Roe v. Wade as the first step toward imposing minority rule on America, along with the advancement of an arch-conservative, religious agenda. That, friends, is the very definition of sharia law, which makes sense given the context of other countries that have also banned abortion.

Here’s the list: Andorra, Aruba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Jamaica, Laos, Madagascar, Malta, Mauritania, Nicaragua, Palau, Philippines, San Marino, Senegal.

Boy, that’s some impressive company we’re planning to keep.

By the way, someone ought to send a sternly worded email to Malta reminding them of their legal obligations as a member of the EU.

Chances are, even if you don’t own a uterus or your uterus has officially retired, you know someone who does. And you may be thinking, no worries, she’s on the Pill or she practices abstinence or she uses an IUD. Used according to package directions, the Pill theoretically has a 99.7% effectiveness rate. But in reality, many women forget to take it every day, which brings the use rate down to 91%.

If a woman is vomiting or has diarrhea for more than 48 hours, that greatly undercuts the Pill’s effectiveness. Use of the antibiotic rifampin, the antifungal griseofulvin, specific anti-seizure medications, or even the herbal supplement St. John’s wort can render birth control far less effective. Obesity, too, plays a role. The Pill doesn’t work as well in very overweight women. And as for barrier methods of birth control, condoms break or are sometimes applied incorrectly.

Birth control pills run about $50 a month for uninsured women. Tack on that twice-yearly mandatory doctor’s visit, which is usually about $250 per, and that’s quite a chunk of change—$1,100 to be exact. Ideally, women shouldn’t need a prescription for oral contraceptives, but that would require action by the Food and Drug Administration or Congress, so start calculating the odds of that ever happening.

Sex, always a risky proposition for women, has now become perilous. There are alarming indications that anti-choice advocates won’t stop with banning abortion in just the Southern and Midwestern states. Republican senators have already convened to discuss a nationwide ban on abortion should they regain the majority this fall. And that’s just the beginning. There are justifiable fears that this fun new activist Supreme Court will roll back Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage. Two of the Court’s most conservative justices, Clarence Thomas, whose wife Ginni Thomas actively participated in the January 6 riot, and Samuel Alito, author of the leaked draft opinion, have already issued blistering rebukes of the Obergefell ruling and made it abundantly clear that they welcomed any chance to reverse it.

This is where we’re at now.

So, what do you think will happen in a post-Roe America? How does forcing women to have unwanted children benefit the country? Do you think those unwanted children are going to grow up to become productive, law-abiding members of society? I don’t. We’re going to end up paying for them, one way or another, either through the prison system our tax dollars support, or the War on Drugs and/or rehabilitation our tax dollars support, or the unwanted children these unwanted children will one day bear. Keeping women trapped in a cycle of poverty, imprisoned by their own biology, does not a stronger country make.

Lest you think this inequity affects only women, think again. Unwanted children have biological fathers, and those fathers are legally obligated to pay child support until the child reaches the age of eighteen. How’s that going to work out for your son who’s just starting out, who may or may not have student loan debt, a car note, a lease? Unless, of course, Republicans plan to put the kibosh on child support, too, which is not out of the question.

Republican “minority rule,” forcing women to carry unwanted children to term, imprisoning women who don’t, and above all, persecuting a generation of Americans that has already been traumatized by 357 U.S. school shootings, a pandemic that has killed more than 1,020,854 Americans, graduating college with $40,904 in loan debt, and a job market that has no place for them—is this a good idea?

If there’d been a Republican-led crusade for subsidized day care or an increase in food stamp programs or healthcare for the whole family, I might have found it more difficult to argue that the entire GOP was a a retention pond for misogynist scum. But that’s not the case now, nor will it ever be in the future.

“Abortion presents a profound moral issue,” Alito writes in his draft opinion, “on which Americans hold sharply conflicting views.” Good thing there are Supreme Court justices like Alito who can decide the moral high road for all of us.

These Justices know, of course, that banning abortion won’t end abortion. Women across the country will subject themselves to all sorts of back alley procedures—and many will die. Funny how they just don’t seem to care about those sex-having harlots, not even the twelve-year-old rape victims and incest victims who will be forced to carry their rapists’ seed to term.

What needs to happen is simple. Congress must codify Roe v. Wade into law, which will make abortion legal in every U.S. state. But in order to do that, it’s likely that the filibuster will have to be rolled back or altogether eliminated since the Democrats hold such a slim majority, and that admittedly opens up a whole new can of worms.

Two nights ago, I bemoaned the idea of a Republican takeover this fall. Now, things are different. Americans who were preparing to vote on the economy and immigration are going to be heading to the polls with one only thing in mind: correcting Republican overreach.

The question is: will voting be enough to stop them?

Weigh in! I look forward to hearing from you. And if you enjoyed reading this article, share it by clicking the Share button.

Copyright © 2022 Stacey Eskelin