USA – The Reason Anti-Abortion Activists Just Won’t Stop

Instead of claiming victory in Dobbs, they’re insisting on fighting for fetal personhood.

BY DAHLIA LITHWICK
AUG 22, 2022

Call it what you will, but there is no enduring benefit to having a media and political ecosystem that is primarily made of impenetrable “bubbles” of reality, distinct worlds in which “epistemic closure” means never having to encounter a single idea that challenges your preexisting beliefs. And yet, we are about to see it tested in an ominous natural experiment. Abortion is a subject in which certain aspirations about what reality might be are pitted directly against what is actually happening on the ground. Forced-birth proponents—who won huge at the Supreme Court when Dobbs v. Jackson came down in June—are perennially being described in terms of the “dog who caught the car.” The November midterms will tell us whether their reality is ascendant in America, or just their judicial and state legislative power.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/08/why-anti-abortion-activists-want-fetal-personhood.html

How An Abortion Fight In Supreme Court Could Threaten Birth Control, Too

November 3, 2020
JULIE ROVNER

Abortion opponents were among those most excited by the addition of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court in October. And they had good reason to be.

As a law professor and circuit court judge, Barrett made it clear she is no fan of abortion rights. She is considered likely to vote not only to uphold restrictions on the procedure, but also, possibly, even to overturn the existing national right to abortion under the Supreme Court's landmark rulings in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/11/03/930533103/how-an-abortion-fight-in-supreme-court-could-threaten-birth-control-too

How a Supreme Court Shaped by Trump Could Restrict Access to Abortion

How a Supreme Court Shaped by Trump Could Restrict Access to Abortion

AUG. 14, 2018

President Trump has pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices who will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy was a cautious supporter of abortion rights. With his departure and the addition of a second Trump appointee, the Supreme Court would have a conservative majority that would most likely sustain sharp restrictions on access to abortion in the United States.

But if the court does hear a case that brings up the issue, it is hardly clear that it would take the drastic step of overruling Roe. The court could instead opt for a more incremental strategy, upholding increasingly severe restrictions in much of the country but stopping short of saying that the Constitution has nothing to say about a right to abortion.

Assuming that there are five justices ready to limit abortion rights, how could that happen? Here are some of the possible scenarios, each of which entails a different degree of legal upheaval.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/14/us/roe-v-wade-explainer.html

Abortion Is Not Murder

Abortion Is Not Murder

Even if we granted the most generous possible terms to the anti-abortion camp, even if we pretended the fetus was fully rational and contemplating Shakespeare in the womb, abortion would still not be murder.
By Jennifer Wright
Apr 13, 2018

It is not surprising that Kevin Williamson, who called for women who had abortions to be hanged (because they are, to his mind, murderers), was recently fired from The Atlantic.

It ought to surprise us that he was hired at all.

Continued: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a19748134/what-is-abortion/

What would America look like if abortion were made illegal again?

What would America look like if abortion were made illegal again?
Leni Zumas third novel, Red Clocks, has been described as a successor to The Handmaid’s Tale

Apr 2, 2018
Tanya Sweeney

Given that her third novel has landed bang on the zeitgeist, it’s almost astonishing to think that Leni Zumas began writing it seven years ago.

The novel, Red Clocks, pivots on a simple conceit – what would America look like if abortion were made illegal again? – and has been described as a successor to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, or Naomi Alderman’s The Power.

The comparisons sit well with Zumas, a relative newcomer: “It feels flattering and kind of scary,” she admits.

Continued: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/what-would-america-look-like-if-abortion-were-made-illegal-again-1.3443337