Roe v. Wade

So the Supreme Court is going to overturn Roe v. Wade and basically let religious fundamentalists control women's bodies.

I feel the need to write something about it.

But then the next thought is: Oh, I should take some time, really organize my thoughts, find links to sources, etc, etc. That way lies me never writing anything. "Perfect is the enemy of good [enough]", etc.

So instead, here's my stream-of-thought braindump.

First, this is terrible. It's terrible for women. Especially in states that want to ban abortion. (And even with RvW many had already effectively banned it by making it practically unavailable.) Especially poor women who don't have the means and connections to leave for more liberal states.

If the court is saying there is no right to privacy, next you'll have states start outlawing contraception.

Then they'll pass laws saying it's illegal to travel to another state to get an abortion. (I think some already exist for minors?)

Without a right to privacy, anti-sodomy laws are back on the table, and also gay marriage bans.

Without a right to privacy, the government can regulate all sorts of personal details about your life with … what limits?

The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.

Yeah, because that worked out so well for slavery, and interracial marriage, and segregation, and gay marriage. And, oh, what's that? Abortion.

It's just such a big "fuck you". "If you want rights, you should merely convince the majority to stop taking them from you."

And, as I've seen others point out, that's a double "fuck you" in the context of the court recently gutting the Voting Rights Act and states ramping up voter suppression and gerrymandering.

The political process is broken and I don't see it getting better any time soon.