I Guess We Weren’t Fearmongering About Roe v. Wade After All, Assholes
Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash
Dear Naysayers,
By now, you’ve learned the news that Roe v Wade — the landmark decision that protects (or should I say, protected) a pregnant person's right to choose to have an abortion — will probably be overturned, courtesy of a leaked draft from Politico. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Justice Alito is believed to have written in the leaked draft of a majority opinion. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
Most Americans don’t want this. Polling consistently shows that most people are not in favor of the decision to overturn Roe. Yet what we want doesn’t seem to matter a whole lot when it comes to American Democracy. Powerful constituencies want Roe to go, so that seems to be that.
The news hasn’t quite hit me yet. I am numb to the situation as I write this at 12:25 in the morning. I want to scream, but I don’t have the energy for it right now. I have truthfully known this would be happening for some time. Conservatives in power have telegraphed their desire to overturn this ruling for literal decades, and besides the frequent fundraising email, the Democratic Party hasn’t been able to do too much about it.
Activists, journalists, and concerned citizens have been worried about this day for decades. But we are not here to talk about these brave people sounding the alarm. I want to discuss instead how you thought this legitimate fear, broadcasted by professionals, again for DECADES, was an overreaction.
Maybe you were insistent that the ruling would never get overturned because it was too popular. “No, The Supreme Court Is Not About To Overrule Roe v. Wade,” Evan Gerstmann assuaged us in Forbes last year. “By the numbers, why Roe v. Wade will probably stand,” Eric Zorn assured us in the Chicago Tribune, convinced that it would be political suicide for conservatives. Because if there’s one thing conservatives are good at doing, it's playing by the rules of political decorum.
Maybe you reasoned that if overturned, it wouldn’t be that harmful. After all, it's not like the US healthcare system is dysfunctional or anything. “Abortions After Roe v. Wade: It Won't Be Like the Bad Old Days” downplayed one Bloomberg article in 2018, reasoning that pills could take the place of current procedures — as if conservatives would stop there.
Maybe, like writer Megan McArdle in her piece Let Roe go, you just didn’t think it's that strong of a ruling, and so welcomed the conservative gutting of the law. “…throw the matter back to the states so that people can argue about it,” she reasoned. It’s not like Republicans have an advantage in state legislatures or anything.
Well, guess what, assholes, you were wrong. You’ve been wrong about many things: the women dressing up in Handmaid outfits, the queer people staging die-ins, the working-class folks calling out labor abuses. They were terrified for a reason.
The next time you tell someone concerned about the future that they need to chill out, maybe remember this moment when your arrogance was made nakedly transparent, and then shut your damn mouth. I mean it. We don’t need people to tell us to sit still as the world burns around us.
Because the buck doesn’t stop here — the conservative constituency that has successfully lobbied the courts to reach this moment doesn’t want to end with criminalizing abortions. They have big, scary plans to merge the most repressive parts of theocracy with the worst elements of corporatocracy, and if we continue to be complacent, they will succeed — they are already more than halfway there.
So shut up and listen. I have linked some helpful resources below for you to read and donate to. Maybe absorb them next time before you think about talking over our well-reasoned concerns.