For an idyllic while, women were ascending in government, in the professions, in their ability to “say no” to men who expected them to say “yes.” But post-Dobbs, “Me Too” has receded as women negotiate this misogynist new/old world.
We all, men and women, must redress the fallout. Here are some steps.
States’ draconian restrictions on abortion have left some women in danger. Should a woman be forced to carry an ectopic pregnancy? What about a dead fetus? Should physicians weigh the risk of death of the mother? Five percent? Twenty percent? What about damage to the mother? How grave the damage? How statistical the risk? Physicians have taken an oath: “Do no harm.” Surely letting a woman bleed to death, even if there is only a 10% risk, constitutes “harm.” Physicians cannot ignore their states’ cruel edicts with impunity: physicians who abort to save a woman may well risk fines and imprisonment. But medical societies, at the state and national levels, can rise up to scream: No. We will not abide by regulations that impede the practice of medicine. They can lobby their state legislatures, they can en masse refuse to comply, they can do the kind of public relations blitz that the “right-to-life” flank has used.
As for the “right-to-life,” let those restrictive states open up their coffers. Women without insurance should have Medicaid, with no stingy quibbling over whether to extend it post-partum, and for how long. Extend it for the life of the mother, the life of the child. After all, “pro-life” legislators should happily ask taxpayers to bear the expense of raising children that the mothers might have aborted. Mothers need more than health insurance, though: they need money. Many women, including married women with children, abort because they cannot afford another child. In a post-Dobbs world, that shouldn’t be a problem, as states institute guaranteed benefits, housing subsidies, excellent schools. Let Motherhood be a joy, free from the financial angst that loomed pre-Dobbs.
Contraceptives should be available, reimbursed by insurance, with school systems including “contraception” in their curricula. Some people may envision a population that is chaste-until-marriage but outside that purview, men and women enjoy sex, using contraception. When they don’t, women get pregnant.
Some employers already pay for abortions. More should. They can pay the expenses for women who travel to other states. They can pay for “medication abortions.” They can make their location decisions — where to build a plant, where to hold a conference — based on the state’s abortion restrictions. Board members should speak out.
Pharmacies in states that bar the sale of abortion pills can object. CVS set a trend by refusing to sell cigarettes; it, plus the other big-name pharmacies, including Walmart, can object to this restraint of trade. There must be legal loopholes for women to buy the pills; there are legal loopholes for people to buy high-powered guns. States that are not banning the pills are setting up barriers; e.g., a physician must administer it, with no provision for “tele-medicine.” GenBioPro, the company that manufactures mifepristone, has filed a lawsuit challenging Mississippi’s restrictions.
A few states no longer allow “rape and incest” exceptions: women there must give birth to the children forced on them by rape. From the start, a new paradigm: DNA rules. Every woman can demand child support, until the child is 18, from the sperm-giver. The nature of the encounter — consensual or not — is immaterial. The man cannot walk away, financially. Police use DNA to trap felons; the abortion-police (a new strike-force to arise) will trap fathers in all the states that restrict abortion.
A lot of women who identify with the churches cheering the Dobbs decision have had abortions. They live in all the states, red and blue. In Missouri in 2017, 4,710 women had abortions; in Alabama, 6,110 did. Those women may have suffered regret, remorse, shame. But they chose to abort, safely and legally. They must tell their stories to their pastors and priests. The churches can decry the sin of abortion, without denying it to people who do not see it as a sin.
The Supreme Court argued that the states must decide on abortion. We must now convince states to weigh the decision carefully, considering not just the rights of fetuses, but the rights of women.
Joan Retsinas is a sociologist who writes about health care in Providence, R.I. Email retsinas@verizon.net.
From The Progressive Populist, August 1, 2022
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