USA – The Inevitable Prosecutions of Women Who Obtain Abortions

The attorney general of Alabama finally went where the logic of the anti-abortion movement has long pointed.

BY DAVID DAYEN
JANUARY 16, 2023

Back when Donald Trump was just a presidential candidate, he was asked by Chris Matthews if he thought abortions should be dealt with under the law, like any other crime. He replied, “There has to be some form of punishment,” specifically saying he meant that the women who obtained abortions should be punished. After his handlers realized what he’d said, he quickly reversed himself, saying that if abortion were banned through the courts or legislation, the punishment should be reserved for “the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman.”

Some Republicans still draw the line there, reserving any legal action over abortions to those who conduct them. … But this don’t-punish-the-woman line is no longer unapproachable.

Continued: https://prospect.org/health/2023-01-16-prosecution-women-mifepristone-abortion-alabama/

How Anti-Abortion Politics Swallowed Up the GOP

Over the years, anti-abortion activists became certain that campaign finance laws were the enemy.

BY MARY ZIEGLER
JUNE 23, 2022

The American anti-abortion movement contributed far more to the rise of Donald Trump and the transformation of the GOP than we often think. Scholars have traced how an ascendant form of Christian nationalism—the belief that the United States was and always should be a Christian nation—was needed for Donald Trump to edge out Hillary Clinton in 2016. But the inﬂuence of the anti-abortion movement went much further, and it had everything to do with money in U.S. politics.

Political scientists and historians of the religious right have told part of the story of the fascinating partnership between abortion foes and Republican leaders. Their studies often suggest that while pro-lifers became dependent on the GOP, the Republican Party did not fundamentally change its priorities. Some assert that the GOP co-opted the religious right, gaining its votes while offering little but speeches in return.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/campaign-finance-abortion-activism-dollars-for-life.html

Abortion Politics, Money and the Reshaping of the G.O.P.

In “Dollars for Life,” Mary Ziegler argues that, over the course of decades, the anti-abortion movement laid the groundwork for an insurgent candidate like Donald Trump.

By Jennifer Szalai
June 12, 2022

DOLLARS FOR LIFE: The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Fall of the Republican Establishment, By Mary Ziegler. 318 pages. Yale University Press. $35.

The upheavals of the last few years have been so relentless that it can be hard to recall just how weird the partnership was: Donald J. Trump and social conservatives, an odd couple for the ages. As the legal historian Mary Ziegler writes in “Dollars for Life,” the start of the 2016 election cycle had evangelicals extremely worried. Hillary Clinton — whose possible presidency they deemed “catastrophic” — was running on what Ziegler calls “arguably the most pro-choice platform in history.” Could a “foul-mouthed real estate mogul” really turn out to be “the savior they were looking for”?

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/12/books/review-dollars-for-life-anti-abortion-republican-establishment-mary-ziegler.html

12.06.2022

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Canada – Overturning Roe v. Wade just the beginning of Trump’s legacy, warns Heyman

Canadian Parliamentarians who have dedicated their careers to fighting for women's rights were left 'terrified' and 'horrified' by the news that Roe v. Wade will most likely be overturned in the U.S., but hope it spurs more action on improving access to abortion in Canada.

By CHELSEA NASH AND SAMANTHA WRIGHT ALLEN , Hill Times
MAY 8, 2022

In the wake of what appears to be the undoing of the right to choose to have an abortion in the United States, former American ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman, who served under Democrat president Barack Obama, says he’s worries this is just the beginning.

“I think that if we think it’s just Roe v. Wade, then I think we’re mistaken. I think that there is a fairly significant movement afoot to reorient the court, reorient government, reorient how we behave domestically and internationally. And clearly, I think it’s a continued threat to democracy,” Heyman told The Hill Times in an interview last week.

Continued: https://www.hilltimes.com/2022/05/08/overturning-roe-v-wade-just-the-beginning-of-trumps-legacy-warns-heyman/360413

Revenge of the Patriarchs: Why Autocrats Fear Women

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

Anticipated abolition of Roe v. Wade after 49 years takes away freedom and health for many American women

Boulder Daily Camera
January 22, 2022
By Warren M. Hern

One of the great legal landmarks in American history, and one of the most important landmarks in the history of women, is one year short of its 50th anniversary. The Supreme Court handed down its Roe v. Wade decision on Jan. 22, 1973, and it is very doubtful that it will reach that 50th anniversary. With its anticipated abolition by the Court goes freedom and health for many American women.

The Supreme Court is now a partisan tool of the Republican Party and its partner in gaining overwhelming, unassailable political power. We are headed for permanent minority rule by a white supremacist, misogynistic, theocratic minority that opposes basic personal freedom, secular society, freedom of the press, scientific knowledge, social justice, civil rights, voting rights, democracy itself, and thought.

Continued: https://www.dailycamera.com/2022/01/22/warren-m-hern/

How Trump Transformed the Supreme Court

The legal journalist Linda Greenhouse expects the new conservative majority to change American law on abortion, religion, and affirmative action.

By Isaac Chotiner
November 11, 2021

Despite serving only one term in office, Donald Trump was able to appoint three Justices to the Supreme Court, giving it a six-member conservative majority. In September, the Court declined to block enforcement of a controversial Texas law that prohibits abortions in the state after approximately six weeks of pregnancy and allows almost anyone to sue a person who “aided or abetted” an abortion after that point. After a public outcry, the Court heard expedited arguments on the law earlier this month. Later this term, the Court will also consider the legality of a Mississippi law that bans abortions after fifteen weeks, a case that could result in the Court overturning Roe v. Wade. This week, I spoke about the Court with Linda Greenhouse, a lecturer at Yale Law School and a contributing writer for the Times, where she reported on the Court for almost thirty years. She is the author of the new book “Justice on the Brink: The Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Rise of Amy Coney Barrett, and Twelve Months That Transformed the Supreme Court,” which recounts the time between Justice Ginsburg’s death and the conclusion of the Court’s first term with Justice Barrett.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-trump-transformed-the-supreme-court

How extremist Christian theology is driving the right-wing assault on democracy

The Texas abortion law is one step toward the true goal of Christian dominionism: Destroying democratic government

By PAUL ROSENBERG
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 31, 2021

Progressive policies and positions are supposed to be rooted in reality and hard evidence. But that's not always the case when it comes to the culture wars that have such an enormous impact on our politics — especially not since the unexpected evangelical embrace of Donald Trump in 2016, culminating in the "pro-life" death cult of anti-vaccine, COVID-denying religious leaders. If this development perplexed many on the left, it was less surprising to a small group of researchers who have been studying the hardcore anti-democratic theology known as dominionism that lies behind the contemporary Christian right, and its far-reaching influence over the last several decades.

Continued: https://www.salon.com/2021/10/31/how-extremist-christian-theology-is-driving-the-right-wing-on-democracy/

Mark Zuckerberg Let False Anti-Abortion Video Back On Facebook To Mollify GOP: Report

Mary Papenfuss
Mon, October 25, 2021

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg intervened to reinstate a false anti-abortion video to assuage conservative Republican politicians, according to internal company documents Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen provided to Congress that The Financial Times examined.

The incident was reportedly one of several instances of Facebook senior executives countermanding company policy to allow American politicians and celebrities to post whatever they wanted despite pleas from employees to moderate the content, according to the documents.

Continued: https://news.yahoo.com/mark-zuckerberg-let-false-anti-014340442.html

Roe v. Wade Is Now in the Hands of the Three Trump Justices

Does that mean it might be safe?

BY DAVID S. COHEN AND DAHLIA LITHWICK
JULY 28, 2021

One of the most interesting fissures that has opened up within the conservative legal movement in recent years has been between mainstream conservative lawyers and the growing performance artist faction of the lawyers for the Trump base. Soon, the conservative justices themselves will have to pick which side of the battle they are on: With the filing last week of a brief that explicitly asks the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the state of Mississippi is forcing the court’s three newest Trump-appointed justices to choose between institutional stability and law that channels right-wing internet memes.

Continued: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/07/mississippi-roe-challenge-barrett-kavanaugh-gorsuch.html