The Rise of the American Taliban

As an economist, I have been watching this drama unfold since the late 70s, although it began earlier—a deliberate effort to rouse the passions of people who felt marginalized by people of color, immigrants, non Christians, and women and wanted to “take their country back.”  Perhaps to 1861. This is the war (Civil war? War of the Rebellion? War Between the States? War of Northern Aggression?)  that is a fire still smoldering 167 years after it supposedly ended. So it’s been a long time coming. But it’s here, and the misogyny has just proved itself as powerful as the racism. The purpose of this concerted, well-funded effort was to distract citizens and voters fromt he growing inequiality, deterioration of public services, land lack of basic protections enjoyed in other advanced nations by blaming it on the current whipping boy–people of color, immigrants, refugees, imaginary socialists,, welfare queesns…

And I am angry, very angry.  I am the grandmother of four granddaughters of child-bearing age living in a red state.  They have been stripped of the rights that their mothers and grandmothers enjoyed. I was married in Connecticut before Griswold in 1968 made contraception legal there, but my husband and I cheerfully defied the law and no one cared.  It was legal to sell condoms for avoiding STDs and birth control pills to restore menstrual regularity, which were apparently epidemic among the tate’s citizens. These blue laws were like prohibition, driving what was legal in other states underground and making the sales and use of these products a little harder but no less prevalent. But today’s penalties are much more stringent, and legislators are looking to find every possible escape rout and to shut abortions and perhaps evetually contraceptiondown.

What can we do? 

1. Most of my blog readers are South Carolinians.  Talk to your legislators, who will reconvene for a special session later in the fall.  Abortion is on the agenda.  Try to urge them to vote no or better yet, to soften the impact with more time and exceptions.  Look for ways to hold the putative fathers accountable with DNA tests and obligations (or in the case of rape or incest, legal penalties). If you are not from South Carolina, do what you can where you live to keep a woman’s right to choose alive.
2. Seek out ways to support women seeking abortions if they need to travel.
3. 3. Harness the power of the vote—in remaining primaries if your state hasn’t primaries already, in candidate events and putting those running on the spot about what they will and will not support (don’t let them do a mealy-mouthed Susan Collins on you).
4. Help people register and get to the polls. Now what the registration deadlines are, what’s available in early voting and/or mail-in voting, how to find their ballot, and drive them to the polls.
5. Take every opportunity to remind people of the Martin Niemoller quote on the rise of Naziism:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
     Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
     Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
     Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.Be aware that this court decision is part of a larger systemic effort to undermine democracy and replace it with an oligarchy of rich, greedy old white men! Yes, there are plenty of good, caring, compassionate old white men. I was married to one. But those are characteristics shared by the beneficiaries of cutting taxes and services, gerrymandering, enhancing minority rule, discouraging voting, and fomenting hatred against the “other.” And creating hare-brained theological justifications for forbidding abortion and contraception that are so out of touch with a Christianity of love, respect, compassion, and second chances, as well as with most other major religions.

Democracy is a fragile system that we take for granted and let fall  into disrepair.  Roe v. Wade overturned and the very unveiled threats in Thomas’s opinion should a clarion call for really stopping the steal—not just the attempted theft of the election but the attack on our human rights. It is of a piece with the plot to overturn the 2020 election.

I have hope that telemedicine and nonsurgical abortion with the 25 or so states that still think women and people of color and LGBTQ people are full fledged human beings.  I fantasize about he right of a woman to demand a DNA test for the putative father and use it to required financial support—unless it was rape or incest in which case there need to be criminal penalties. I find myself wondering if Native American sovereignty extends to developing abortion clinics on reservations. And I refuse to surrender to despair.  It is my country too. Any yours.