Editorial rights purchased from iStock. Photo by Unaihuiziphotography.
Today (6.24.22) on CNN’s program hosted by Fredericka Whitfield, a woman (whose name escapes me) expressed her joy at the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe V. Wade. Smiling from ear to ear, she had the audacity to claim that “Women don’t want abortions.”
The assumption that she has insights into every woman’s most private thoughts got my attention. Fred, to my disappointment, failed to follow up by asking which women she’s been talking to. Clearly, it isn’t any of the hundreds of thousands who have taken to the streets since SCOTUS announced its most recent regressive decision — one designed to satisfy the Christian populace committed to forcing their religion on the rest of us.
Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, undoing nearly 50 years of legalized abortion nationwide
I was equally struck by the next thing this woman said, which was that “Women would prefer to have the support they need to raise a child.”
Well, sure. If I got pregnant and wanted a child but knew there was no way to have a decent life and raise my child given my income, career choice, incomplete education, drug addiction, mental illness, or whatever, that makes sense. It’s also a ridiculous argument under the circumstances.
Women who have children without the resources to raise them don’t get a lot of help from anti-abortion activists. Anti-abortion activists are all about protecting the fetus — they are conspicuously absent when it comes to providing the support needed after a child is born. There is an exception to this, but it requires the mother to convert. It’s astonishing how helpful religious people are to those who share their beliefs, but if you have the audacity to turn your back on their version of God, you’re on your own.
And what about women who simply do not wish to raise children at the point in their lives when they find themselves pregnant? Do they not count as women now? Obviously, this anti-abortion activist hasn’t been talking to them. What about women who’ve been raped? How many of them are excited about bringing their rapist’s child to term?
What if the rapist is their father? If this activist is horrified at the idea of allowing strangers to have abortions on demand, and thinks every pregnant woman really just wishes she could keep her child, she needs to talk to someone whose Daddy got her pregnant and forced her to raise her child as her sibling.
No one can speak for anyone else. No man or woman can know or understand everything needed to make the best decision for a mother, with one exception: the mother. This has always been true and always will be.
And if this woman, who thinks she can speak for all women, is right — then no woman would need an abortion and this entire argument would be moot. But she’s not right. She’s as wrong as she could possibly be.
Shortly after I heard this interview, I saw a banner on CNN. It said that Clarence Thomas is now calling for a review of other former SCOTUS rulings on same-sex marriage, and more. I can’t help but wonder what would happen if the decision to allow interracial marriage was similarly challenged. If we are going to roll back all the social progress of the past 50 years, what makes Justice Thomas think the choice to marry outside his race will still be protected?
After all, he is just one of the six far-right justices who voted to take away a woman’s right to her own body. Perhaps he will be the lone dissenting voice when SCOTUS revisits the right to interracial marriage. If the goal of SCOTUS is to continue this misguided journey back in time, Justice Thomas had better look out.