This week's leak of a draft opinion by U.S. Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito strongly signals the end of the era defined by Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), in which access to abortion was a constitutionally protected right of private individuals. Roe has seemed on the edge of repeal for decades, only to escape in some improbable way or other. Now, the melodrama seems about to end, with no Dudley Do-Right coming to save Little Nell (or choose your own metaphor).
For all its improvisational origins, Roe has held up very well. The number of abortions in the United States has fallen precipitously over the last thirty years, while large majorities of the public support putting such complex choices in the hands of the ones most directly affected--even though they may not approve of the choices that get made.
While admiring the clarity with which both pro-lifers and pro-choicers see the abortion issue, I continue to find compelling arguments on both sides. It is too easy to simplify the relationship between a woman and the fetus she carries, and neither "Her body-her choice" nor "It's a child not a choice" gets the complexity. Any notion of a common life, which is what we're advertising here on Holy Mountain, requires including both the woman and the unborn child in our circle of care.
You know the arguments, so we don't need to repeat them here. This is not to pass judgment on them, or to question the sincerity of those who hold them.
Nevertheless, I am given considerable pause by the political expression of the pro-life position. While I know quite a few individuals outside of government who articulate some version of what Joseph Cardinal Bernardin called the "seamless garment of life," in the halls of government the opponents of abortion are also advocating:
- immediate end to all public health efforts to control the coronavirus
- cutting social services for poor families with children
- shifting education money away from public schools
- reducing regulation of the environment, sometimes to the extent of denying the existence of environmental issues like climate change
- oil drilling in environmentally-sensitive areas
- ending restrictions on gun purchases and possession
- harsh treatment of refugees and other immigrants from Latin America, sometimes as using them in political stunts
- English-only laws
- stigmatizing and punitive actions towards transgender youth
- the right to refuse service to gays and Lesbians, while stigmatizing their allies as "groomers"
- hostility towards any effort to prevent police killing people of color
- exhibitionist prayer (evangelical Christian only, of course) by public high school coaches at the 50-yard-line
- repeal of the Affordable Care Act in favor of--well, it's never clear exactly, but something like commodified health care where those who can afford care get care
- more money for roads, less for public transit and bicycle infrastructure
- tax cuts for upper incomes with less enforcement
- making it more difficult to form labor unions
- making voting more difficult, along with the most cockamamie theories of how the 2020 presidential election was stolen
Throw in the brazen manipulation of the judicial confirmation process in 2016, and the theme running through this list is not "life," certainly not "common life." If anything it's an ad hoc mixture of libertarianism for people with socio-economic power, with strong opposition to anything that smacks of difference. And that's the world into which all those babies are going to be born?
That's why I'm going to miss Roe. Repeal is less about affirming life than it is about crushing the other. There needs to be more thought than you got in this space about how abortion, and rules about it, fit into our common life. But for sure Alito's decision ain't it.
SEE ALSO:
Lyz Lenz, "This Was Always the Plan," Men Yell at Me, 3 May 2022
Molly Monk, "The History of Catholic Teaching on Abortion Isn't as Clear-Cut as You Think," The Outline, 16 January 2020
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