The most intense assault on abortion rights in this country since Roe v. Wade was first established in 1973 has been underway and unrelenting this year. Right under your nose, 106 anti-abortion laws had been enacted across the country by October. In September, Texas effectively outlawed almost all abortion, and Roe v. Wade may very well be overturned altogether by June of ’22 or radically eviscerated. This war to strip women of their humanity is being fueled and ignited by a woman-hating, Christian fundamentalist fascist movement, with the Supreme Court of the United States playing a central role in advancing the institutionalization of the subordination of women to men.

These fascists are deadly serious about ripping away the right to abortion as soon as they can. Yet, as we’ll get into, the leaders of the so-called “Pro-Choice” movement that people are told to look to are so imprisoned within the terms of this system that they are telling people to adjust to the loss of this right without even waging a massive, society-wide fight to defeat it! They are downplaying the horror of what is coming, telling people to accept that these rights will be gone while gearing up for some supposed “long-haul fight” to win them back over decades. Indeed, these so-called “leaders” of the so-called “Pro-Choice Movement” are so enslaved to this system that they are cravenly capitulating to its enslavement of women through the shredding of the right to abortion and everything bound up with that.

Let’s look at what has gone down in the last year:

• For more than 120 days, women in Texas have been forced to carry unwanted pregnancies, obtain abortion services out of state (if they can afford to), or seek unsafe, potentially deadly methods of unregulated, or “back alley” abortions. The six-week Texas abortion ban known as SB8 makes no exception for rape, or incest. The Supreme Court is allowing this unconstitutional law to remain in effect. There are seven million women of reproductive age in Texas.

• On December 1, the Supreme Court held oral arguments on a 2018 Mississippi law that  bans abortions after 15 weeks into pregnancy. If this law is upheld, which the fascists in robes are signaling they are likely eager to do, abortion will be radically curtailed in many states and the constitutional right of abortion itself may be revoked by summer.

• The future these Christian fascist fundamentalists are fighting for is already on our doorstep. Brittney Poolaw is a 20-year-old who was charged with 2nd degree manslaughter, and is now serving 4 years in prison for suffering a miscarriage. The rationale for this devastating  grave injustice can be found in the logic of these fascist ghouls occupying the Supreme Court in the December 1st hearing where they presented the idea of “fetal rights'' and the completely theological notion of “fetal personhood,” something founded not in legal or scientific journals, but in biblical interpretation. 

These fascists are fighting for a future in which women are seen as nothing more than walking breeders and incubators with less rights than the sperm of a rapist!

In this future, women will be and already are being denied access to abortion, contraception, and the right to fully participate in society. In this future, LGBTQ people will be violently forced back into the closet. When women are forced to endure pregnancies and/or motherhood against their will, not only do they lose their bodily autonomy, along with it, their worth as a human is no more. The fertilized egg within her body becomes more valuable than her life. Women will be forced out of jobs and academia. Poor women will be driven into even more desperate conditions, forcing many to stay in abusive relationships out of financial dependency, and many women will resort to taking their own lives or die from infection or from bleeding out after having a friend or stranger attempt to abort their pregnancy. No woman is free when she does not have the right to choose if and when she becomes a parent.

Betrayal and Capitulation from the Democrats and the Organized “Pro-Choice Movement”

A different future is possible, but we must act now. The mainstream Democrats, their mouthpieces in the media, and the “women’s movement” broadly have insisted that we can work around this fascist onslaught with tactics like using abortion pills (which are only effective up to 10 weeks into pregnancy and will soon be outlawed if the fascists have their way) or, more typically, to strap in for an (unrealistic) arduous electoral process of winning these rights back over the course of 30 years.

The New York Times editorial board, realizing the prospect of a post-Roe future, literally wrote: “The first step is acceptance—specifically, accepting that such a conservative Supreme Court is no longer going to protect reproductive freedom but will instead undermine it. The next step is to shift the focus away from the courts and onto electoral politics.” No! No one should accept this loss! Rather, there needs to be a massive, society-wide fight to defeat this attempt to slam women backwards. But this will not be accomplished through turning to electoral politics. This requires stepping outside these official channels. NEWS FLASH: It was exactly when people stepped outside of these normal channels and into the streets that concessions were wrenched, and through tremendous sacrifice. Yet it is precisely this which they fear.  They  speak in the name of women’s rights while leading you to stay inside and tethered to institutions that are being ripped apart by their fascist counterparts, and being turned into machinery of full out fascist rule. These mis-leaders may pose as militant defenders of women’s rights, but their LACK of real action speaks louder than words. Again—they are so enslaved to this system that they are cravenly capitulating to the enslavement of women, through the shredding of this right and everything bound up with it.

In sharp contrast, the Revcoms have been putting this shocking reality right in front of people, on campus, in the public squares, and in the neighborhoods, disrupting business as usual, exposing this fascist assault on women, and raising people’s sights to a world free from patriarchy and all oppression and exploitation. Unlike the aforementioned misleaders, the Revcoms have been leading people to recognize the need for a society-wide fight to defeat this fascist assault on women as part of, and while getting organized for, the revolution that is needed.

No Going Back—No Surrender! Abortion On Demand & Without Apology!

Forced Motherhood Is Female Enslavement!

Christian Fascist Theocrats—Get Your Laws And Vigilantes Off Our Bodies!

Patriarchy And Capitalism: You Can’t End One Without Ending The Other— Revolution, Nothing Less!