The Time for Leftist Extralegal Action Has Finally Come
freddiedeboer.substack.com
For a long time I’ve been dismissive of people calling for illegal or violent actions in the pursuit of left-wing causes, mostly because they deserve to be dismissed. The violence that attended some BlackLivesMatter protests in 2020 was directionless and had no positive effect, for example. Dreams of fighting the state are absurd on their face, as the technological advantage of the American government and security forces is so great that there’s no hope for victory. (This isn’t 1950s Cuba, comrades.) Going all the way back to my teenage years, definitely in my years in the Iraq war protest movement, during and after Occupy, in the heat of the 2020 uprisings - again and again I’ve been confronted by fellow travelers who wanted to “really do something” and I’ve been forced to point out that we would be doing nothing at all if we did.
I guess that I will be the first to say it, then: this is a terrible idea for a number of reasons.
If I were the pro-choice left, I would abandon the "abortion is awesome, and anything short of allowing third trimester abortions is misogyny" tack. There are a whole lot of people who would support European style abortion laws (typically twelve weeks, maximum) as a compromise, but would sooner ban abortion outright than allow abortion on demand at any point in time.
After seeing the headline, I'm relieved that you aren't calling for us somehow rise up against the Supreme Court like I keep seeing on Twitter -- "we don't have to obey them", "we can shut the court down", "let's go to their houses" etc. Just a bunch of nonsense from people who don't leave the couch.
Helping women travel to blue states is something I can get behind, though. I never should have doubted you.
What I find interesting about this whole thing is the attitude among certain groups that women have no choices other than abortion to counter pregnancy. There are plenty of options pre and post conception. The reaction seems to be bordering on the hysterical,, especially after two years of being informed over and over by the same hysterics that nobody's body is their own (read: draconian mask and vaccine mandates and demonizing those that didn't go along with the health theater). I am firmly in the prochoice camp for early pregnancy, say first trimester. But like the vast majority of Americans, anything after that makes me queasy, and I've seen a lot of people pushing this to the extreme instead of finding ways to help women avoid pregnancy or raise children they didn't intend to have, economics being a driving force behind many decisions to abort.
If women want to go to states with looser laws, let them. I'd probably even help a woman with an early pregnancy take the trip. And "red states" need to be careful how draconian they get. This isn't the 1970s. We'd all be better off telling the zealots on the extreme ends to shut up and find a middle of the road solution.
I endorse this post without reservation. Unless and until we achieve the political goal of making abortion accessible to all women with whatever limitations we must impose in order to satisfy the majority of members of whatever coalition we put together, we must help women who need/want an abortion but can't get one. Lots of historic examples of this type of direct action, from the Underground Railroad to the Catholic Worker movement to Liberation Theology. All aim(ed) to meet people's immediate needs in the face of enormous cruelty and injustice. Please, please, Freddie and anyone else among this group, if you learn of a network, let me know so I can be part of it. I am a middle-class woman who leads a comfortable life compared to most women in the world in a state that -- as of now -- guarantees access to abortion. It is my responsibility to help women who are not in the same position.
The flip side of this is — for those of us who claim any variant of the conservative or pro-life mantle (personally, I tend to arrive at roughly the place most of the country does — and the place that our ancestors often arrived at, too — abortions in the first trimester are acceptable (let’s call it “restoring courses” if that will help Alito connect it to our long-standing cultural traditions), the earlier the better, and later abortions should be more restricted but have reasonable accommodations for health and safety), now that the big win has happened — what are you going to do to be truly “pro-life”?
Assume, as seems likely, that when all the legal dust settles the new regime will mostly affect the underclass, who may not have the means to (or whose lives are too chaotic to let them) either obtain long-acting birth control or travel to get an abortion on another state. Potentially that’s hundreds of thousands of new children each year born into poverty, often into broken homes or other bad family dynamics. Does the pro-life movement have a plan to deal with that surge — to say nothing of the already-existing children of poverty?
In one of those horseshoe-theory convergences, I think being pro-life (in the eighteenth century sense) and pro-family leads me back around to some sympathy for the democratic socialist position. I actually think a winning conservative coalition for the future could be pairing pro-life and some level of government largesse to support families — especially if it is targeted to support work and marriage. Mitt Romney has a bill along these lines that he’s shopping around. And if that doesn’t fly, Tucker Carlson can probably get us some tips from Viktor Orban. But I think dealing with poverty is now a moral obligation for the pro-life right. If it continues to chase the abortion phantom and wrap its flag around that issue, rather than presenting a coherent plan to care for all these new children, it will have revealed itself as entirely political in nature, and not a pro-life movement at all.
People seem to be moving toward a norm of ignoring or flouting laws they do not like, rather than making lawmakers change them. And now, increasingly, even those in power are simply picking and choosing what they want to enforce, while ignoring what is politically inconvenient to change. Proceeding down this path will not end well if the goal is truly to have rule by law, but maybe that is the point. By conditioning the public to selectively ignore laws rather than changing them, it can eventually be trained to tolerate rule by decree.
One big reason so many of our institutions are dysfunctional is because it suits various influential and well-heeled special interests to have them that way. Another is that by failing to fix the issue, the public can be kept divided and distracted, hence more easily manipulated.
This is the end of the beginning, and we are not going back to a "pre-Roe" status quo. Most abortions in the United States are now "performed" with pills, which makes this particular act of cruelty absurd on its face.
We are now entering a legal environment akin to the 1850s, where states in which the exercise of bodily autonomy is illegal will enact laws in a spiraling escalation of reach, severity, and cruelty in an attempt to stop abortions, and states that are still functioning democracies will enact an ascending staircase of laws to stop other states from interfering in their attempts to allow people to receive abortions. You think this is bad? Wait until the Supreme Court decides that Texas has the right to send the Rangers into Massachusetts to extradite people for sending mifepristone through the mail to someone in Texas.
This decision will also hasten the United States' decline as a world power. In 1973, the vast majority of countries outlawed abortion. This is no longer the case. When the prosecutions start, the world is going to see.
Donate to abortion funds. Get some Plan B and some mifepristone (they have a 4 year shelf life, IIRC.)
You know what would be better? Passing a federal law that abortion is legal to 15wks. Congress could do this tomorrow but the left wing won’t allow it.
Why do Marxists support abortion? I hope you'll forgive my probable illiteracy on this topic, but it doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Like, the number one reason given by women seeking abortions in poverty. I can't imagine a Marxist being satisfied with a society where women are compelled by poverty and a lack of social services to abort healthy pregnancies. I could understand an argument that said, of course that's monstrous, but until we build a just and equitable society women must have the right to choose. But that's explicitly not Freddie's argument. How does a Marxist get to pro choice absolutism? That viewpoint seems to depend on a high commitment to radical autonomy, which ... is a liberal value, I thought? Not a Marxist one?
This is not an animating issue for me so I admit I may be underselling it, but I'm doubtful this will end up being the sea change it is represented to be. I mean, the Mississippi law made the basis of the challenge still allows abortion and is actually more liberal than most of western Europe. I suspect the vast majority of states will settle where most people seem to come down if polling is correct--legal in the first trimester or so.
Roe interrupted and disrupted the democratic process, harming us all by injecting the courts into a ongoing social debate, and setting us back 50 years. Except now the reasonable among us are forced to deal with far more numerous radicals on both sides. Thanks, Justice Blackmun etal.
Call me old fashioned, but I plan on talking to my State rep and senator about this. I plan to tell them its no time for a victory lap, and that absolutist opposition to abortion was just as harmful, and cheap, as was absolutist abortion rights up until last week. Tell them the issue will never die unless they find common ground for the common good.
They may not listen. But its my obligation as a citizen to try.
For those of us in the reproductive justice movement in southern states, this type of direct action has been the norm for over a decade. From 24-hour waiting laws, to shutting clinics down due to unnecessary burdens like doctor admitting privileges and extravagant building codes, southern states have made abortion very difficult to obtain, especially if you're poor and can't take time off work.
If you're not in a big city, it has been the norm for years to have to travel hundreds of miles and multiple days just to end a pregnancy for any reason -- fetal abnormalities and non-emergency life of the mother included.
Abortion funds provide money for rides, food, lodging, child care -- and the abortion procedure itself! Although many are in a limbo state right now as they make sure they're legally allowed to operate in a post Roe landscape, they will probably be back at it soon.
If you want to keep women in control of their reproductive decisions, get involved or donate!
And another thing: Pregnancy and birth are dangerous, life threatening conditions. Humans don't lay eggs. We grow the next generation in our very bodies. No one should have their body and health compromised without their consent. Being a placental mammal is no joke. ( And kind of my obsession. See my Substack for more.)
I was reading that one huge difference between 1973 and now is the existence of abolition drugs that can be easily and safely administered at home. They are also very easy to ship. With that being the case, the actual decline in abortions might be very minimal. All this fighting might end up being all for naught.
I may be wrong, but I don't think at any time since at least the end of slavery have states had any authority to 1) restrict movement between states and 2) criminalize what happens in other states. So while I fully support helping women get abortions in other states, I don't think there is any chance of that being criminalized. If it was, I would support breaking that law, however.
An underground railroad for abortion access already exists. It will just expand. What is galling about the SCOTUS decision and the conservative lawmakers writing these draconian abortion ban bills is that they seem to have little understanding about reproduction and what happens during the complicated 9 months of pregnancy. They truly believe that the egg just spontaneously turns into a human being at the moment of fertilization when in reality, a lot of subsequent steps have to occur for that egg to even start developing.
There are reasons that most expecting couples don't mention they're pregnant until after the 12th week is because up to that point, the fertilized egg may not develop further, miscarriage is a high probability (especially for older mothers approaching 40), etc. There are a myriad of reasons to have safe, legal access to abortion including not wanting to have a child. That's a decision that should remain private.
Those making the argument that they're anti-abortion because of the sanctity of life, are also the same (by and large) who don't support any progressive social policies that would make having and raising children easier or even having safe neo-natal care for the mothers. America's "family" policies are very much a "bootstrap yourself to adulthood" if you don't have the means. And relegating women to second class citizens incapable of managing their own health and reproduction is anything but pro-life.
And SCOTUS has effectively said, by sending this back to the States, is that American citizens have selective constitutional rights as far as it concerns privacy and other rights linked w/ privacy but you can always pack a gun anytime, anywhere. The Constitution under Roberts has effectively been rendered moot as far as the rights of citizens are concerned because those Constitution rights are no longer universal, nor equally applicable to all citizens. By rendering every right (except of course packing a gun) to state-by-state assessment, you'll now see Red states further circumscribe the rights of their citizens with punitive bills that constrict/restrict a person's ability to pursue the rights afforded them by the Constitution.
I guess that I will be the first to say it, then: this is a terrible idea for a number of reasons.
If I were the pro-choice left, I would abandon the "abortion is awesome, and anything short of allowing third trimester abortions is misogyny" tack. There are a whole lot of people who would support European style abortion laws (typically twelve weeks, maximum) as a compromise, but would sooner ban abortion outright than allow abortion on demand at any point in time.
Try starting there first.
After seeing the headline, I'm relieved that you aren't calling for us somehow rise up against the Supreme Court like I keep seeing on Twitter -- "we don't have to obey them", "we can shut the court down", "let's go to their houses" etc. Just a bunch of nonsense from people who don't leave the couch.
Helping women travel to blue states is something I can get behind, though. I never should have doubted you.
What I find interesting about this whole thing is the attitude among certain groups that women have no choices other than abortion to counter pregnancy. There are plenty of options pre and post conception. The reaction seems to be bordering on the hysterical,, especially after two years of being informed over and over by the same hysterics that nobody's body is their own (read: draconian mask and vaccine mandates and demonizing those that didn't go along with the health theater). I am firmly in the prochoice camp for early pregnancy, say first trimester. But like the vast majority of Americans, anything after that makes me queasy, and I've seen a lot of people pushing this to the extreme instead of finding ways to help women avoid pregnancy or raise children they didn't intend to have, economics being a driving force behind many decisions to abort.
If women want to go to states with looser laws, let them. I'd probably even help a woman with an early pregnancy take the trip. And "red states" need to be careful how draconian they get. This isn't the 1970s. We'd all be better off telling the zealots on the extreme ends to shut up and find a middle of the road solution.
I endorse this post without reservation. Unless and until we achieve the political goal of making abortion accessible to all women with whatever limitations we must impose in order to satisfy the majority of members of whatever coalition we put together, we must help women who need/want an abortion but can't get one. Lots of historic examples of this type of direct action, from the Underground Railroad to the Catholic Worker movement to Liberation Theology. All aim(ed) to meet people's immediate needs in the face of enormous cruelty and injustice. Please, please, Freddie and anyone else among this group, if you learn of a network, let me know so I can be part of it. I am a middle-class woman who leads a comfortable life compared to most women in the world in a state that -- as of now -- guarantees access to abortion. It is my responsibility to help women who are not in the same position.
The flip side of this is — for those of us who claim any variant of the conservative or pro-life mantle (personally, I tend to arrive at roughly the place most of the country does — and the place that our ancestors often arrived at, too — abortions in the first trimester are acceptable (let’s call it “restoring courses” if that will help Alito connect it to our long-standing cultural traditions), the earlier the better, and later abortions should be more restricted but have reasonable accommodations for health and safety), now that the big win has happened — what are you going to do to be truly “pro-life”?
Assume, as seems likely, that when all the legal dust settles the new regime will mostly affect the underclass, who may not have the means to (or whose lives are too chaotic to let them) either obtain long-acting birth control or travel to get an abortion on another state. Potentially that’s hundreds of thousands of new children each year born into poverty, often into broken homes or other bad family dynamics. Does the pro-life movement have a plan to deal with that surge — to say nothing of the already-existing children of poverty?
In one of those horseshoe-theory convergences, I think being pro-life (in the eighteenth century sense) and pro-family leads me back around to some sympathy for the democratic socialist position. I actually think a winning conservative coalition for the future could be pairing pro-life and some level of government largesse to support families — especially if it is targeted to support work and marriage. Mitt Romney has a bill along these lines that he’s shopping around. And if that doesn’t fly, Tucker Carlson can probably get us some tips from Viktor Orban. But I think dealing with poverty is now a moral obligation for the pro-life right. If it continues to chase the abortion phantom and wrap its flag around that issue, rather than presenting a coherent plan to care for all these new children, it will have revealed itself as entirely political in nature, and not a pro-life movement at all.
People seem to be moving toward a norm of ignoring or flouting laws they do not like, rather than making lawmakers change them. And now, increasingly, even those in power are simply picking and choosing what they want to enforce, while ignoring what is politically inconvenient to change. Proceeding down this path will not end well if the goal is truly to have rule by law, but maybe that is the point. By conditioning the public to selectively ignore laws rather than changing them, it can eventually be trained to tolerate rule by decree.
One big reason so many of our institutions are dysfunctional is because it suits various influential and well-heeled special interests to have them that way. Another is that by failing to fix the issue, the public can be kept divided and distracted, hence more easily manipulated.
This is the end of the beginning, and we are not going back to a "pre-Roe" status quo. Most abortions in the United States are now "performed" with pills, which makes this particular act of cruelty absurd on its face.
We are now entering a legal environment akin to the 1850s, where states in which the exercise of bodily autonomy is illegal will enact laws in a spiraling escalation of reach, severity, and cruelty in an attempt to stop abortions, and states that are still functioning democracies will enact an ascending staircase of laws to stop other states from interfering in their attempts to allow people to receive abortions. You think this is bad? Wait until the Supreme Court decides that Texas has the right to send the Rangers into Massachusetts to extradite people for sending mifepristone through the mail to someone in Texas.
This decision will also hasten the United States' decline as a world power. In 1973, the vast majority of countries outlawed abortion. This is no longer the case. When the prosecutions start, the world is going to see.
Donate to abortion funds. Get some Plan B and some mifepristone (they have a 4 year shelf life, IIRC.)
You know what would be better? Passing a federal law that abortion is legal to 15wks. Congress could do this tomorrow but the left wing won’t allow it.
Why do Marxists support abortion? I hope you'll forgive my probable illiteracy on this topic, but it doesn't make a ton of sense to me. Like, the number one reason given by women seeking abortions in poverty. I can't imagine a Marxist being satisfied with a society where women are compelled by poverty and a lack of social services to abort healthy pregnancies. I could understand an argument that said, of course that's monstrous, but until we build a just and equitable society women must have the right to choose. But that's explicitly not Freddie's argument. How does a Marxist get to pro choice absolutism? That viewpoint seems to depend on a high commitment to radical autonomy, which ... is a liberal value, I thought? Not a Marxist one?
This is not an animating issue for me so I admit I may be underselling it, but I'm doubtful this will end up being the sea change it is represented to be. I mean, the Mississippi law made the basis of the challenge still allows abortion and is actually more liberal than most of western Europe. I suspect the vast majority of states will settle where most people seem to come down if polling is correct--legal in the first trimester or so.
Roe interrupted and disrupted the democratic process, harming us all by injecting the courts into a ongoing social debate, and setting us back 50 years. Except now the reasonable among us are forced to deal with far more numerous radicals on both sides. Thanks, Justice Blackmun etal.
Call me old fashioned, but I plan on talking to my State rep and senator about this. I plan to tell them its no time for a victory lap, and that absolutist opposition to abortion was just as harmful, and cheap, as was absolutist abortion rights up until last week. Tell them the issue will never die unless they find common ground for the common good.
They may not listen. But its my obligation as a citizen to try.
There is no forced pregnancy short of rape. Unwanted pregnancy is a miscalculation or a change of mind.
For those of us in the reproductive justice movement in southern states, this type of direct action has been the norm for over a decade. From 24-hour waiting laws, to shutting clinics down due to unnecessary burdens like doctor admitting privileges and extravagant building codes, southern states have made abortion very difficult to obtain, especially if you're poor and can't take time off work.
If you're not in a big city, it has been the norm for years to have to travel hundreds of miles and multiple days just to end a pregnancy for any reason -- fetal abnormalities and non-emergency life of the mother included.
Abortion funds provide money for rides, food, lodging, child care -- and the abortion procedure itself! Although many are in a limbo state right now as they make sure they're legally allowed to operate in a post Roe landscape, they will probably be back at it soon.
If you want to keep women in control of their reproductive decisions, get involved or donate!
Look up abortionfunds.org to see a national list.
And another thing: Pregnancy and birth are dangerous, life threatening conditions. Humans don't lay eggs. We grow the next generation in our very bodies. No one should have their body and health compromised without their consent. Being a placental mammal is no joke. ( And kind of my obsession. See my Substack for more.)
I was reading that one huge difference between 1973 and now is the existence of abolition drugs that can be easily and safely administered at home. They are also very easy to ship. With that being the case, the actual decline in abortions might be very minimal. All this fighting might end up being all for naught.
I may be wrong, but I don't think at any time since at least the end of slavery have states had any authority to 1) restrict movement between states and 2) criminalize what happens in other states. So while I fully support helping women get abortions in other states, I don't think there is any chance of that being criminalized. If it was, I would support breaking that law, however.
An underground railroad for abortion access already exists. It will just expand. What is galling about the SCOTUS decision and the conservative lawmakers writing these draconian abortion ban bills is that they seem to have little understanding about reproduction and what happens during the complicated 9 months of pregnancy. They truly believe that the egg just spontaneously turns into a human being at the moment of fertilization when in reality, a lot of subsequent steps have to occur for that egg to even start developing.
There are reasons that most expecting couples don't mention they're pregnant until after the 12th week is because up to that point, the fertilized egg may not develop further, miscarriage is a high probability (especially for older mothers approaching 40), etc. There are a myriad of reasons to have safe, legal access to abortion including not wanting to have a child. That's a decision that should remain private.
Those making the argument that they're anti-abortion because of the sanctity of life, are also the same (by and large) who don't support any progressive social policies that would make having and raising children easier or even having safe neo-natal care for the mothers. America's "family" policies are very much a "bootstrap yourself to adulthood" if you don't have the means. And relegating women to second class citizens incapable of managing their own health and reproduction is anything but pro-life.
And SCOTUS has effectively said, by sending this back to the States, is that American citizens have selective constitutional rights as far as it concerns privacy and other rights linked w/ privacy but you can always pack a gun anytime, anywhere. The Constitution under Roberts has effectively been rendered moot as far as the rights of citizens are concerned because those Constitution rights are no longer universal, nor equally applicable to all citizens. By rendering every right (except of course packing a gun) to state-by-state assessment, you'll now see Red states further circumscribe the rights of their citizens with punitive bills that constrict/restrict a person's ability to pursue the rights afforded them by the Constitution.