What’s Behind the Antiabortion Crackdown?
Since the turn of the 19th century, crackdowns on women’s reproductive rights have come in cycles. The attack isn’t only about controlling women but about pushing up the birth rate to suit capital’s needs.
Capitol police officers surveil abortion rights demonstrators outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC on May 4, 2022. (Valerie Plesch / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In April this year, Lizelle Herrera was arrested and charged with murder, accused of causing “the death of an individual by self-induced abortion.” She had been reported to the police by someone at a hospital in South Texas when it was discovered that she had used abortion pills.
The rapid action of protesters freed her, but we’ll need to be doing a lot more of this in future. Providing an abortion in Oklahoma is now a felony punishable by ten years in prison, while providing abortion pills in Tennessee is an offense that carries up to twenty years.
These states are pushing through brutal laws in anticipation of the Supreme Court decision to overturn abortion rights, expected this summer. If the decision goes through, about half of all US states are expected to outlaw abortion. Florida, which just passed a ban on abortions after fifteen weeks, may become the only place you can get an abortion in the South.
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