First abortion, then IVF...and now birth control?
Republicans just keep digging themselves deeper
Man, one thing you can depend on Republicans for is that if you give them a shovel, they will just keep on digging. Last week the Alabama Supreme Court did Republicans the favor (not!) of putting in vitro fertilization on the ballot for 2024. Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court did their Republican handlers the favor (not!) of putting abortion on the ballot by overturning of Roe v Wade. Now Democrats will be able to use access to contraception as another issue to pound Republicans with, given the results of a new poll that shows how hugely unpopular Republican opposition to contraception is.
Republicans have been suffering on the issue of abortion already, losing several special elections to Democrats pushing the issue. It’s a no-brainer. Democrats have turned the Supreme Court decision on Roe to their advantage every chance they’ve gotten. And why not? According to Pew Research Center, 61 percent of Americans say abortion should be legal in most cases. With restrictions on abortion on the ballot in states both red and blue across the nation, emphasizing a woman’s right to control her own body has been a winner every time Democrats have pushed it.
The Alabama IVF decision is cream in the coffee of Democrats running for office everywhere. The state’s Supreme Court, in a ruling one judge joined with a concurrence dripping with references to Bible verses and Christian theologians, found that embryos, even frozen embryos, are legally “children” and thus subject to laws forbidding abuse and murder if they are accidentally or purposefully destroyed.
Polling on the issue of fertilization treatments is even worse for Republicans than abortion. A memo to the National Republican Senatorial Committee from pollster Kellyanne Conway, who was an aide in the Trump White House, revealed that “a staggering 85% of all respondents, including 86% of women, support increasing access to fertility-related procedures and services.” A poll last year by Pew showed that 42 percent of Americans have either used IVF or know someone who did.
This is an excerpt from my column in Salon, which they have now moved up to weekly from bi-weekly, publishing every Tuesday. You can access the full column at the link below:
As was said on SNL’s Weekend Update: The Alabama Supreme Court declared a woman’s eggs are children… and the Black ones can be tried as adults!
Please don't express shock, anyone, about anything developing along the lines here. The loathing for the female body and the endeavor above all others to control it as proof of male supremacy, as proof of life as biologically determined so there are masters and those who are mastered. If you express the least surprise or shock, it means you have no idea what the lives of women entail during every moment of consciousness in this culture and in all the other cultures where the female body is understood to be something that must be controlled and punished. Meaning the religious and totalitarian forces in all other cultures.