Disclaimer: I’m pro choice so don’t come for me. 
The Supreme Court, which was the maniacal focus of decades of Republican ire on the subject of abortion, appears ready to overturn Roe or at least severely curtail it.
Yesterday, WaPo had a companion piece to it’s headline story that showed how abortion is handled in other countries, including countries that we have all thought were the most progressive countries in the world. The laws in countries like Sweden and the Netherlands are much more restrictive that the US. The cutoff for getting an abortion is something like 12-20 weeks. After the cutoff, you need to get an exception from a panel of doctors. Presumably, if you or the fetus have health issues or defects, the doctors will allow an abortion.
So far, I hadn’t heard any complaints from the women in countries like Sweden or The Netherlands that these restrictions were unreasonable. And I would have to agree. 15 weeks is a reasonable cutoff. You may not know you’re pregnant at 6 weeks but at 15 weeks, almost everyone knows. Don’t pull out some statistic that says 95% of women don’t know they’re pregnant at 15 weeks because we all know that it’s not true. Nor can you say that for some cosmically unfathomable reason, AMERICAN women are gynecologically different and or their brains do not recognize pregnancy before the 16th week, 2days.
So, if the court came back and said, right, we think we should restrict abortion to 15 weeks and after that, you need to get a doctor’s note, I’d be ok with that. It would be great if that meant that some religious institutions and family run businesses would drop their absurd opposition to comtraceptives and that some pharmacists would stop making life changing decisions for women who absolutely do not under any circumstances want babies period.
The thing is, we KNOW that’s never going to happen. The religiously motivated are never going to put down this sword until abortion is banned everywhere in America. But they will be temporarily satisfied if Roe is no longer the law of the land. No federal standards for abortion seekers or doctors. yes, yes, it *does* make women unequal in some states. But there will always be a New York or California or Oregon to go to if you can pay for the flight and accommodations.
It is going to suck everywhere else. And I can also see the court including the ability of doctors and pharmacists to conscientiously object to prescribing birth control or performing abortions in states where it will still be legal.
This is what the Pro motherhood voters have always wanted. They are not pro-life or they’d also have a problem with the death penalty and gun deregulation. Those things seem to have loopholes for them, loopholes that they will not grant women.
It is past time for us to discuss what they really want. They want all women to fulfill their divine natures as mothers. They want them and not the male partners to take responsibility for their sexual behavior. They want them to give up everything for the children. They think, erroneously, that the only reason why women want to abort is because motherhood is difficult. Maybe they’ll throw a few diapers their way after the baby is out. But in general, women are supposed to be mothers, whether or not they actually want children.
You shall have the children and you shall be shamed for having them when you aren’t married. You shall be a burden to your family. Your life goals will be truncated so you can stay home, possibly in poverty for the rest of your life, and shoulder the responsibility for your actions. That’s God’s plan for you.
With that in mind, and let’s not kid ourselves, that’s the end goal, does anyone really believe that 15 weeks with medical exemptions after that, will be acceptable?
We know it won’t.
Now, we have to figure out who benefits from this? Well, it’s not going to be women or their families. It’s not going to be women at work who may not be able to do their jobs if Roe is retired. I can’t think of a single entity who will benefit from this except American businesses that may use this as a back door way of keeping wages low. Women of child bearing years may be relegated to jobs with less responsibility and fewer promotional opportunities. They will be automatically mommy tracked.
That’s where we are.
Oh, and religious institutions may find themselves facing an exodus of women from their pews. Plus, Republican governors may face a backlash next year and congressional candidates like Marjorie Taylor Greene just *might* start looking like the crazy people they actually are.
In summary, overturn Roe and you will get:
Forced motherhood
More widely applied automatic mommy tracking
Less money in the family household over time.
It’s gonna happen, people. That’s what they voted for.
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The Confluence 