In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned a woman’s basic right to abortion—putting all women in the category of second-class citizen without the basic right to control when and whether to have a child. Since then, the fascists have been working to chip away at any and all access to abortion.
The anti-science lunatic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Under his watch, HHS announced the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was launching its own “review of evidence” as to whether the abortion pill mifepristone is safe.1 HHS claims they were compelled to act by “recent studies raising concerns about the safety of mifepristone.” What they are actually talking about is something from a far-right anti-abortion “think tank” with ties to the Heritage Foundation.
This bogus report claims that almost 11 percent of the women studied experienced a “serious adverse event” due to the use of mifepristone, far higher than the 0.5 percent rate found in previous clinical studies. But this report does not adhere to any scientific guidelines and is not peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal. And the so-called “serious adverse” side effects are so vague that it could be interpreted to mean anything. What’s more, the supposedly “objective” researchers behind this report are also leading the effort to ban the abortion medication. (For a fuller look at how this report is totally unscientific, see this post by Jessica Valenti at the Substack “Abortion, Every Day.”)
The truth is that more than 100 scientific studies have proven, again and again, for decades, that abortion pills are a safe and effective method for terminating a pregnancy.
Medication abortion is now used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. In states where abortion is basically banned, women are able to receive abortion pills through the mail from providers in states where abortion continues to be legal. There are now 22 states and DC where abortion is legal that have passed “abortion shield laws” that protect these providers from threats of prosecution by states where abortion is banned.2 As a result, the number of abortions in the U.S. has actually increased since 2022. This situation is unacceptable to the Christian fascists who are aiming for a complete nationwide ban on abortion. Now, the Trump fascist regime is heading toward severely limiting, or even ending, the use of medical abortion—while claiming that it’s for the “safety” of women.
Today, more than 62 million women and girls live under state abortion bans. How many of these women have already been forced to have children against their will, foreclosing their lives and their dreams, reducing them to breeders and incubators? Those states where abortion is banned have not just ended dreams but lives as well. Women living in states where abortion is banned are nearly twice as likely to die during pregnancy, childbirth, or soon after giving birth, compared to women living in states where abortion is legal and accessible.
And they’re not just after abortion pills but birth control. Recently, under orders from the Trump regime, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) destroyed $10 million worth of birth control pills and other contraceptives that were meant to go to women in low-income countries. In a statement to the New York Times, USAID said, “President Trump is committed to protecting the lives of unborn children all around the world. The administration will no longer supply abortifacient birth control under the guise of foreign aid.”
This is extremely dangerous bullshit! First, fetuses are not “unborn children!” And women are not incubators. Second, there is no such thing as “abortifacient birth control.” An abortifacient is a substance that induces abortion. Contraceptives, or birth control, are used to prevent pregnancy—not end it.
Christian fascist Supreme Court “justice” Amy Coney Barrett weighed in on this recently, when interviewed on TV. Asked about the status of contraceptives like the morning-after pill and IUDs and whether they are legally protected, she said birth control and miscarriage treatment are left up to individual states—implying those states could ban them, just as they banned abortions.
The Christian fascist fanatics, who play a major role in the Trump regime and their base in society, have had outlawing abortion and birth control in their sights for a long time. The enslavement of women is central to the fascists’ overall white-supremacist, anti-LGBTQ, immigrant-hating, anti-science agenda... an agenda they are ready to enforce through open violence and terror. It is hard to imagine how much greater will be the harm to women and girls if these Christian fascists are not driven from power before they get one step further. This is why we have a tremendous responsibility to act urgently to stop them—while we still have a chance.
Women are not incubators! Fetuses are not babies! Abortion is not murder!
Forced motherhood = female enslavement!