2022: Don't Worry, They'll Never Outlaw Abortion, Wait What?

Because 'Roe v. Wade is settled law.'

This year, the thing feminists and anyone else who was actually paying attention spent years warning would happen finally happened — the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade .

It's been a dark time. It hasn't just affected those who don't want to be pregnant, but those who did want to be pregnant but whose pregnancies went wrong (just like we said it would). Patients in states where abortion is banned have been unable to terminate life-threatening pregnancies until the last minute, with doctors terrified they could lose their licenses or end up in prison. OB-GYNs are starting to leave abortion ban states altogether. That's a scary proposition for residents given that many of these states already have severe OB-GYN shortages to begin with. This means that many people may not even be able to get an appointment for a pap smear, nevermind an abortion.

Guttmacher Institute 

A study from the Commonwealth Fund "found that maternal death rates were 62 percent higher in 2020 in abortion-restriction states than in abortion-access states (28.8 vs. 17.8 per 100,000 births)." We don't know what they were in 2022, but it's hard to imagine things have gotten better — or haven't gotten worse.

Abortion is now pretty much unavailable in 14 states, and eight more have bans that are currently being blocked by judges. Twelve of those states have enacted near-total bans, while abortion rights hang in limbo in two of them. According to the Guttmacher Institute, there are "17.8 million women of reproductive age (15–49) who live in these 14 states, along with transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals who also may become pregnant" who now have to worry that they will be forced to continue a pregnancy against their will.

The anti-abortion people, hot off their Supreme Court victory, have now set their sights on going after IVF and contraception, while so many who agree with them insist they'd never do such a thing.

There have, however, been a few bright spots. More than a few. Abortion rights supporters across the nation have banded together and donated their time and their money to try to continue to ensure access to as many people as possible, even in states where it is banned. States like California have put together funds to help those from states where abortion is banned travel there to get one.

There's no question that a large part of the reason Republicans did not get the red wave of their dreams is because people wanted to preserve whatever abortion rights they still had.

Incredibly, the state of Kansas voted    against  amending their constitution to ban abortion, making the state — the site of the 1991 anti-abortion "Summer of Mercy" and the Westboro Baptist Church — an unlikely refuge for abortion-seekers in the Midwest.

Even Kentucky voted against an amendment that would have affirmed that there is no constitutional right to abortion in the state.

It turned out that when abortion is put on the ballot, people vote to keep abortion rights. Because the fact is, as much as a lot of people don't want other people to get abortions, they kinda still want the option to be there if they need it. Or if their daughters or mistresses need it.

All of this being said, the fact that Republicans were able to retake the House and didn't suffer that badly certainly does undermine the "They'll never get rid of abortion, they need it to run on" logic deployed by so many men who supported abortion rights but wanted to vote for Republicans for other reasons. They've amped up the culture war nonsense, especially insofar as it concerns their obsession with whatever they've decided "wokism" is that week and hysteria over LGBTQ people existing. It's this nonsense and their ability to get people worked up over nothing that will allow them continue to be a threat to all of our rights, including those pertaining to abortion. Especially now that they've realized that when given the choice, even people in states like Kansas and Kentucky don't actually want abortion to be fully banned.

It's hard to look forward to next year and say that things will be better — but there's also literally no chance of that if we don't keep fighting. Donations to abortion funds and other groups fighting to preserve abortion access went way up after Roe was overturned but have dropped off significantly since then, and many of these groups are now in dire need of funding to help those in states without abortion travel to get one. So if you happen to have some extra cash lying around this time of year, be sure to donate some of it to National Abortion Funds or your preferred abortion non-profit.

 Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons .

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