The attacks on the right to abortion are intensifying—with the fascists throughout society and in every level of government, including the judiciary, showing their fanatical determination to subordinate women to the status of breeders and incubators. Without the right to abortion, women can’t be free. Which is why these attacks have been the leading edge of a Christian fascist program to rule through open white supremacy, criminalize LGBTQ people, attack and terrorize immigrants, and remake the “rule of law” to mean whatever serves their program, while declaring they will not respect any election they lose.

If you do not want to live in a world where women’s dreams are shattered and their lives are foreclosed by being forced by the state to have children against their will, the question you have to answer is: What will you do now?

The Democrats tell you to wage a 30- or 40-year fight to win back this right and are desperately working to restore, rely on and defend what have been the “normal procedures and channels” of this oppressive system while the fascist Republicans are moving with speed and determination to lock down a society of female enslavement and all out fascist rule—again, what will you do now?

As the Proclamation, We Are the Revcoms (Revolutionary Communists), says:

Shaping up before us now are two fundamentally opposed futures: Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating. And this truth rings out now more powerfully than ever: Which future we get depends to a great extent on what we do.

While people have been dreaming escapist dreams of a Barbie-run Supreme Court, in the real world the assault this summer has been relentless:

** On August 16, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals—a federal court packed with fascists—ruled to restrict the use of the abortion medication, mifepristone. This was a ruling in the midst of an ongoing, complex legal battle. This particular ruling states that the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) did not follow proper procedures when it loosened regulations in 2016 to make mifepristone more accessible. This ruling would mean that mifepristone can only be used by women seven weeks pregnant or less, well before many women know they are pregnant (currently mifepristone can be used up to 10 weeks of pregnancy). They ruled that only doctors (as opposed to other medical professionals) can prescribe the drug, and that women using it have to meet in-person with a doctor.

This is ominous both because of what it will mean for women’s ability to access a pill used in almost half of all abortions and because of the precedent it sets of enforcing judicial oversight of a scientifically determined FDA decision about the availability of medication.

The background to this case: This case was first heard at a lower federal court in Amarillo, Texas, in front of the Trump-appointed Christian fascist Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk. Last April, he ruled that the FDA must entirely remove its approval for mifepristone. Embedded in this ruling were a series of very dangerous moves that could lay the basis for a federal ban on abortion (either outright or in effect). The Supreme Court issued an emergency stay on this ruling while it was appealed to the Fifth Circuit.

Now the Fifth Circuit just issued its ruling, but the Supreme Court hold still stands. The Department of Justice is expected to appeal this Fifth Circuit ruling and we don’t know what the Supreme Court will, or will not, do.

But one thing IS certain: as things stand now, this attack on medication abortion remains on track to become law.

** Idaho is an epicenter of extreme anti-abortion laws. It already has a near-total ban on abortion unless a pregnancy is the result of rape or incest (which has to be reported to the state), or to save the life of the woman (an extremely broad and risky category that results in many women being brought to the brink of death before an abortion is performed).

But this wasn't enough. Last May, the Idaho governor signed in a new law to target what they call “abortion trafficking.” This makes it illegal for anyone to assist a minor in obtaining an abortion without parental consent—this could be used to target broad categories of people, including a doctor referring a woman to a clinic out of state, someone driving the minor across state lines, or even a friend who loaned the young woman funds. This could even include the out-of-state doctor who provided the abortion—even if the abortion is legal in the state where the doctor is practicing.

Under the law, adults found guilty of “abortion trafficking” would face felony charges and could be punished with two to five years in state prison. Any relative of the man who got the young woman pregnant has the right to sue an adult who helps her obtain an abortion—up to four years after the abortion took place.

At least one aspect of this law preventing doctors in Idaho from giving advice has been stayed by a judge, because the law blocks the free speech of doctors. And the bordering states of Washington and Oregon—where abortion is legal, and where many women from Idaho travel to—are working to enact shield protection laws to prevent prosecution of doctors or people helping women travel to their states. But this will result in a direct conflict of state laws that could end up before the fascist-packed Supreme Court.

** Also in Idaho, six professors at state universities and two teaching unions have filed a lawsuit against state officials saying that a two-year-old law, the “No Public Funds for Abortion Act,” violates their First Amendment rights. The law makes it a crime to use public funds in Idaho to “promote” or “counsel in favor of” abortion—with penalties of up to 14 years in prison! This has led to a shameful wave of self-censorship among professors—changing what they discuss in class, altering what they teach, and even changing their online bios to remove any mention of “abortion”—whether it be related to public policy or healthcare research. It is very good these professors and unions are taking this law on in court, but this is the kind of thing that there needed to be mass resistance and opposition to when this law was first passed, even if that meant real personal risk!

** An openly anti-abortion federal Texas judge—Matthew Kacsmaryk—will decide soon whether Planned Parenthood should repay Texas millions of dollars the organization received through state Medicaid funds. This is the same anti-woman fascist who made the original April ruling on the mifepristone case. In 2021, Texas removed Planned Parenthood from its list of Medicaid recipients, which meant women in need of cancer screenings, birth control or treatment for sexually transmitted infections had to find a different clinic or doctor if these procedures were to be covered by Medicaid. This was the result of a series of legal battles that began in 2017. Texas is now suing Planned Parenthood for Medicaid reimbursements from when these court proceedings began in 2017—even though there was a court order saying that these services should be covered and paid for by the Texas Medicaid system. Planned Parenthood said this could result in charges up to $1.8 billion!

The case has no connection to the area where the lawsuit was filed except that this is the district where this fascist judge presides. This is called “judge shopping” and is a fascist tactic being used to get a case in front of a known fascist judge likely to rule in their favor.

Urgently Needed: Fighting Back… AS PART OF PREPARING FOR REVOLUTION

In all these cases, not only is there the vicious attack hurling women backwards, but the specific cases to attack abortion rights are being used by an organized fascist movement to shred the rule of law and what people have come to see as the basic legal “norms.” This is a reflection of the sharpening fight among the rulers of this system which will increasingly affect all the basic institutions of society. To quote again from the We Are the Revcoms Proclamation, these rulers “are deeply divided in a way they have not been since the Civil War in the 1860s, and the country is being ripped apart, with one section moving toward an outright fascist form of rule with the other fighting for the horrific way things have been.”

What is urgently needed now are people rising up in mass resistance, defying these bans, speaking out against these fascist laws, fighting in an uncompromising way for Legal Abortion On Demand and Without Apology Nationwide—and doing so as part of getting organized for a real revolution to overthrow this whole system of capitalism-imperialism... a revolution which—because of these sharpening divides throughout society—has become more possible.

Uniting broadly in this mass resistance to defend the rights and lives of women, doctors, professors, counselors... anyone and everyone enabling women to take control of their futures by learning about and accessing the right to abortion. And doing so as part of getting organized for an actual revolution to bring a radically different and far better system into being.

As the revolutionary leader and author of the new communism, Bob Avakian has said:

Instead of being a tail on the Democratic donkey—with its attempt to keep this monstrous system going, and to deal with the growing fascist danger, by relying on the “normal procedures” of this system and doomed efforts to “heal the divisions” that are deepening every day—people need to work for the revolution that is urgently needed, and deal with the fascist danger as part of doing that.