In Post-Roe America, new fronts open in war against women, families

Monday, June 24, 2024 | 2 a.m.

Two years ago today, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in the Dobbs case, overturning Roe v. Wade and 50 years of accompanying precedent. Since then, an all-out war on women and families has erupted in the United States with right-wing extremists seeking to regulate critical facets of women’s health care, privacy and bodily autonomy.

Within months of the Dobbs ruling, dozens of states had passed near-total bans on abortion, some of which didn’t even allow exceptions for rape, incest or serious threats to the mother’s life. As a result, many pregnant women have been forced to the brink of death in the name of protecting unborn fetuses that have no chance of survival.

Victims of sex-crimes, including children as young as 10, have been forced to travel across state lines to terminate pregnancies inflicted upon them by predators, adding to the trauma they’ve already experienced.

Some states have also imposed serious criminal penalties for doctors, nurses, midwives and other health care workers who provide abortion services or counseling. In Idaho, which has some of the most draconian penalties, as many as one-quarter of OB-GYNs have changed specialties, retired early or left medicine altogether, according to the Idaho Coalition for Safe Healthcare.

Other laws have targeted individuals and nonprofit organizations that provide assistance to women traveling across state lines to seek an abortion. This has led law enforcement agencies to surveil women, monitoring their internet search history and location history looking for evidence of obtaining an abortion, shattering the general expectation of privacy and autonomy. The culture of fear surrounding women’s reproductive and health care rights has been breathtaking.

In February, a new front emerged in the war on women when the Alabama Supreme Court declared that frozen embryos created for the purpose of in vitro fertilization (IVF) were full-fledged human beings entitled to all the rights and privileges of any other person. Under the ruling, the government would have the powers to pursue civil action or criminal charges such as child neglect, endangerment or even murder against individuals, health care providers or embryo storage facilities whenever a frozen embryo is destroyed or otherwise becomes unviable.

While the Alabama Legislature has since created a legal exemption for IVF service providers, the limits of the exemption are uncertain. This leaves couples who have struggled to conceive, including those rendered infertile by childhood diabetes or cancer treatments, to also contend with health care providers that are afraid to help for fear of being sued or prosecuted. Even the hopeful couples themselves could face liability for knowingly creating embryos that are never implanted and become nonviable in the freezer.

American conservatives have spent decades arguing that they are “pro-life,” yet a conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court relying on conservative legal arguments and precedent established by a previous, conservative U.S. Supreme Court is actively persecuting women, families and health care providers who want nothing more than to bring life into the world.

These types of decisions and declarations are not outliers in the post-Roe world.

Laws that invoke similar language to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling are already being considered in several states with Republican legislative majorities. Georgia, Missouri and Arizona have already enacted fetal personhood laws, and lawmakers in at least 12 other states have introduced fetal personhood laws in the current legislative session.

Moreover, with the newfound support of the Southern Baptist Convention — the largest Protestant denomination in the country, with 13 million members — it is increasingly likely that these draconian proposals will become law. Two weeks ago, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution denouncing IVF and calling on government officials to “restrain” the practice.

If given the opportunity, this unholy alliance is all but certain to attack everything from basic contraception and reproductive education to the very notion that women should have the right to choose when, where and with whom they engage in sexual activity. That may sound extreme, but in light of some states’ refusal to grant exceptions for rape and incest, is it really that farfetched?

A decisive majority of Americans believe that women have the right to control their own bodies, including the right to choose their own reproductive healthcare. These are deeply personal decisions that should not be allowed to be dictated by specific faith traditions or government bureaucrats. Just as importantly, one’s right to control one’s body should not vary from state to state on the basis of gender.

But the GOP has no desire to abandon its war on women. Conservative extremists have already captured much of the judiciary, and it is only their own incompetence and infighting that has kept them from exercising their malice to control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Should they recapture the White House and the U.S. Senate, it almost certainly would mean the end of women’s and families’ rights to privacy and autonomy in their reproductive care.

Only the voters can put an end to the war on women and families, by voting out of office any lawmaker who seeks to eliminate women’s basic rights.