by: JULIE CARR SMYTH and CHRISTINE FERNANDO, Associated Press
Nov 19, 2023
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The statewide battles over abortion rights since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a constitutional right to abortion have exposed another fault line: the commitment to democracy.
As voters in state after state affirm their support for abortion rights, opponents are acting with escalating defiance toward the democratic processes and institutions they perceive as aligned against their cause.
BY MARY ZIEGLER
NOV 09, 2023
After Ohio voted to enshrine reproductive care access in the state’s constitution on Tuesday, abortion rights supporters are now a perfect 7-for-7 in ballot initiative fights since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. Ohio has Republicans in control of all three branches of government, but the state’s voters still managed to approve a ballot initiative on reproductive rights. Meanwhile, abortion helped propel state lawmakers in Virginia to control of both chambers of the state Legislature—and fueled the reelection of Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear in Kentucky. Memes and tweets have circulated saying that if abortion were on the ballot in 2024 instead of Joe Biden, the race would be a done deal.
Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/11/republican-ohio-abortion-vote-florida-desantis.html
After Roe, the anti-abortion movement faces a new opponent: popular opinion.
By Mary Ziegler
OCTOBER 3, 2022
The anti-abortion movement has
long loved to profess its love for democracy. Clarke Forsythe of Americans
United for Life consistently called on the Supreme Court to reverse Roe v. Wade
and put questions about abortion “back into voters’ hands—where they belong.”
The National Catholic Register proclaimed the day Roe was overturned “a
wonderful day for democracy.”
But now democracy may not look so hot to
anti-abortion activists: In the months since Roe was overturned, voters in
Kansas, a deeply conservative state, decisively rejected a proposal to undo
state constitutional abortion rights, and many expect the result to be the same
when voters confront ballot initiatives in key states such as Michigan. Fueled
by rage about the reversal of abortion rights, Democrats have nearly eliminated
Republicans’ advantage in voter registration and have turned what appeared to
be a landslide loss in the 2022 midterms into a potential nail-biter.
Why is the U.S. failing to lead the way in securing and protecting abortion rights?
by Kristyn Brandi, MD, MPH
April 24, 2022
In the last few years, a wave of court rulings and laws decriminalizing abortion have swept across Latin America, on the backs of pro-abortion activists like those in Argentina's Green Wave who "did the unthinkable" by delivering unprecedented victories for reproductive rights in the region.
In December 2020 Argentina's legislature made abortion legal up to 14-weeks in pregnancy; last September, Mexico's Supreme Court decriminalized abortion, paving the way for legalization; and just this past month, Colombia decriminalized abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. The World Health Organization (WHO) just released new abortion care guidelines that affirm a wide range of options for safely managing abortions. And for the first time, WHO recommended health officials and other policymakers recognize that people can safely self-manage all or parts of their abortion with abortion pills or through the use of telehealth services.
Continued: https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/98369
By Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks
March/April 2022 (posted Feb 8)
Foreign Affairs
The pantheon of autocratic leaders includes a great many sexists, from Napoléon Bonaparte, who decriminalized the murder of unfaithful wives, to Benito Mussolini, who claimed that women “never created anything.” And while the twentieth century saw improvements in women’s equality in most parts of the world, the twenty-first is demonstrating that misogyny and authoritarianism are not just common comorbidities but mutually reinforcing ills. Throughout the last century, women’s movements won the right to vote for women; expanded women’s access to reproductive health care, education, and economic opportunity; and began to enshrine gender equality in domestic and international law—victories that corresponded with unprecedented waves of democratization in the postwar period. Yet in recent years, authoritarian leaders have launched a simultaneous assault on women’s rights and democracy that threatens to roll back decades of progress on both fronts.
Continued: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2022-02-08/women-rights-revenge-patriarchs
Abortion Bans are an Attack on Democracy
The South has traditionally been a battleground for the some of the biggest conflicts that shape today’s democracy. Current abortion bans in states like Georgia and Alabama are no exception.
9/13/2019
by Deborah Brown
These laws deny people basic freedom to make decisions over their own bodies, and they are part of a centuries-long assault on civil rights that began at our nation’s founding. Attacks on reproductive rights are deeply intertwined with years of attacks on voter rights, particularly for people of color. Restrictions on the fundamental right to decide if, when and how to have children are part of a larger effort to distort democracy, in the service of a small number of extremists, by suppressing freedom and rights for the majority.
It’s not an accident that recent attacks on abortion and voting rights coincide with a rising tide of corporate influence in politics and a wave of political extremism that have made racist tweets from lawmakers, shootings at elementary schools and images of immigrant children in cages common features of American life. These attacks are often even set into motion by the same people.
Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2019/09/13/abortion-bans-are-an-attack-on-democracy/
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