State Forced Pregnancy Is Enslavement

The avant-garde group Refuse Fascism was the first to warn the public about Trump’s autocratic and fascist tendencies before the majority of people were aware of the horrors to come from his reign. Now they are warning the public about the dangers of the Trump-packed U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and legalizing state forced pregnancy. 

Women’s Rights Groups are working to keep abortions safe and legal and to stop the slide into the dark age of illegal abortions that killed so many women. Over 60% of Americans support legal abortions, so expect a strong and unending backlash if Roe v Wade is overturned.

On December 1, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the Mississippi reproductive rights case that seeks to ban abortions after 15 weeks.  This case chips away at the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established a constitutional right to abortion and prohibited states from banning the procedure before fetus viability around 23 weeks. 

Restrictive abortions laws in conservative states like Texas, Mississippi, and Georgia are a slippery slope to overturning Roe v Wade. If this happens, Republican-controlled states will have domination and control over women’s bodies and lives and state forced pregnancy will be legal.  This will mainly affect poor women because rich women will have the resources to fly to another state or country for an abortion.

Conservatives on the Supreme Court signal support for upholding the Mississippi case that brings the court closer to overturning Roe v. Wade.

During his nomination process, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said Roe v. Wade was a settled law with a 50-year precedent. Now that he is on the Supreme Court he thinks the Roe v Wade precedent can be overturned. 

He lied about his position on Roe to get on the Supreme Court, just like he lied when Christine Blasey Ford and numerous other women accused him of sexual assault.

Kavanaugh also wants to shift responsibility away from the Supreme Court and send the case back to Mississippi to take away abortions rights. 

Another Trump-appointed Justice, Amy Coney Barrett, believes adoption is a good solution to state forced pregnancy resulting in forced parenthood on people not financially, emotionally, or mentally ready or capable of being parents. Her solution will create a huge nightmare bureaucracy of orphanages, foster care homes, and an adoption industry ripe for abuse.

What an insulting and ignorant solution from a privileged Ivory Tower Princess out of touch with poor and working-class people.

Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch said that the focus on viability (when a fetus can live outside the womb) was inappropriate.  He was in the majority allowing Texas’s restrictive abortion law to take effect. Now there are dozens of little girls under 13 years old in Texas who have been victims of rape or incest and are forced to give birth to their rapist’s child. 

Justice Clarence Thomas doesn’t believe that there is a constitutional right to abortions.  But he believes the second amendment clearly gives people the right to bear arms. His solution is for more impoverished children and more guns.

Thomas was also accused of sexual harassment by attorney Anita Hill in 1991 during his confirmation hearing.  This proves the ongoing misogynist, anti-woman makeup of the Supreme Court.

Justice Samuel Alito has a long track record of votes opposing abortion rights. 

These five conservative justices give a good clue that they believe a woman’s fundamental constitutional right to an abortion can be taken away.

The two accused sexual predators on the Supreme Court should never be allowed to make any decision regarding women’s body autonomy.

The Mississippi ban was put in place by people who said, “We’re doing it because we had new justices on the Supreme Court appointed by Donald Trump who said he would only appoint justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade,” as reported in numerous news sources.

The thing that is different today from the 1992 Republican-controlled Supreme Court that upheld Roe v. Wade is that Trump has apparently succeeded in putting justices on the court willing to overturn Roe v Wade.

In response to the conservative justices who signaled they are willing to overthrow Roe v Wade, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said, “Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts…If people believe that it’s all political how will the courts survive?”

If Roe is overturned the Supreme Court is telling women they no longer have full human rights like men, they are now second-class citizens. If a woman’s fundamental rights to her own body can be taken away by partisan justices with a political agenda, then what other rights can be taken away from citizens? 

Other rights that could be threatened by a politicized Supreme Court are the right to freedom of speech, right to worship as you please, right to a fair trial by jury, right to vote in elections, right to marry who you love, and the right to assembly to name a few rights we could be in danger of losing.

If abortions become illegal, 21 other states are ready to ban abortions. Young women who have grown up with reproductive rights will especially be shocked and impacted.

Women who are waiting for the courts to save their reproductive rights better wake up.  The courts nor the politicians will save our rights, we need to mobilize to save ourselves.  We need the kind of grassroots movement, we saw in 1960 around civil rights and in 1970 with the women’s movement that fought for legal abortions. 

Now don’t think for a minute these so-called Christian Republican lawmakers who have passed these restrictive abortion laws give a damn about the child after it is born because they don’t. 

Just look at all the social programs to help children they cut funds to like the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). But they had no problem supporting Trump’s $2.4 trillion dollars giveaway to billionaires and the wealthiest corporations in the US, many of whom pay no taxes.

The hypocrisy is so thick around their “sanctity of life” claim that it’s hard to breathe.

Pro-lifers claim they are so concerned about the “sanctity of life” when it comes to the unborn but not so much when it comes to mandated vaccines or wearing a mask to protect living children from a deadly virus like COVID.

 Nor are they concerned about the “sanctity of life” as they pass laws to allow easy access to guns in the delusional belief that a good guy with a gun will save everyone from mass school shootings that are killing children.  Republicans are not concerned about the “sanctity of life” enough to pass sensible gun safety reform laws to protect living children. 

These abortion bans are not about the life of the unborn, it’s about control and domination of women’s bodies and lives. It’s about putting women back in their place – impoverished, pregnant, and subservient to the patriarchy.  

These extremist white Christian Nationalists use “sanctity of life” as an excuse to force their pseudo-religious beliefs on everyone. They want to ban all abortions even for rape and incest and ban birth control, sex education, books, covid vaccines mandates, and much more.

Who knows how far Christian Nationalists – who are also known as Christian fascists and the American Taliban – will go down this rabbit hole to legally force their pseudo theology on people with different religions and beliefs, and people who believe in science.

But this radicalized white supremacist domination dream does not stop with women, Oh, no it will extend to the control and domination of minorities, other religions, and every aspect of life because it is their path to power, authoritarianism, and fascism.

Republican-controlled state houses have passed repressive voter suppression laws to make it more difficult for minorities and young people to vote. They have legalized their criminal acts by passing laws to remove election officials and replace them with Trump’s cult to count your votes. If they don’t like the outcome of an election, they will cry fraud and overthrow the election. 

 It does not stop with voter suppression laws, next redistricting and gerrymandering allow Republican-controlled states to pick the voters they want and reduce minority representation in districts.  

In other words, the next election is rigged in Republican-controlled states. They are desperate because with the changing demographic they don’t have enough white supremacists to win without cheating. 

Weaving all of this together it’s about Republicans staying in power by any means necessary.  It’s about dominating women, discriminating against minorities, and perverting the rule of law.  This radicalized, violent, white supremacists cult movement plans to put Trump or a Trump-like autocratic with fascist tendencies back in power. 

 This is not what Christianity, patriotism, or democracy looks like.

written and photos by Gloria Tatum