I find myself needing to write about women’s reproductive health care today in light of the Supreme Court’s decision that mifepristone will remain legal. Though the vote was unanimous, the fact is, as it has been noted for many months when talking about the Court and this issue, it was a matter they had no right to even engage in from the bench. It was a sad joke when this Court took up a case from conservative religious types who wanted to con people into thinking that a proven medication with a decades-long safety record is dangerous. The partisan attack on health care for women should never have made it to the stage of a ruling before this Court.
Let us be honest about what we are dealing with when talking about some members of the Court. When a justice cannot even orchestra the simple act of correctly flying a flag are we to assume there is an ounce of the required skill set to wade into the science behind an FDA decision?
What irritates conservatives is that with the use of the drug, abortions have remained about steady in our nation, despite the Dobbs decision which removed a 50-year precedent of abortion rights. As I roamed over the news about the Court’s decision and other related news stories about abortion, the graphs and information from The New York Times really registered as more proof of how women are forced to take, at times, expensive steps to receive health care.
“Abortion is one of the most common procedures in medicine,” said Amy Hagstrom Miller, the founder of Whole Woman’s Health, which runs clinics in Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico and Virginia.
“We’re having people travel hundreds or thousands of miles for a procedure that typically takes less than 10 minutes and can be done in a doctor’s office setting,” she said. “Nobody does that for any other medical procedure.”
“More than 14,000 Texas patients crossed the border into New Mexico for an abortion last year. An additional 16,000 left Southern states bound for Illinois. And nearly 12,000 more traveled north from South Carolina and Georgia to North Carolina.
These were among the more than 171,000 patients who traveled for an abortion in 2023, new estimates show, demonstrating both the upheaval in access since the overturn of Roe v. Wade and the limits of state bans to stop the procedure. The data also highlights the unsettled nature of an issue that will test politicians up and down the ballot in November.
Out-of-state travel for abortions — either to have a procedure or obtain abortion pills — more than doubled in 2023 compared with 2019, and made up nearly a fifth of recorded abortions. On Thursday, the Supreme Court rejected a case that would have sharply curtailed access to medication abortion, allowing the pills to remain available to patients traveling from states with bans.”
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Polls generally find that when women voters are questioned on the issue of abortion nearly 80% of those between the ages 18-49, two-thirds of suburban women, 60% of independents, and even a third of Republican female voters say they disapprove of the court’s removing federal protection of the right to abortion. The Donald Trump base is wired for the most outlandish policy moves concerning abortion they can concoct, as evidenced by the draconian efforts in state legislatures. Their desire to ‘own the libs’ over abortion has a huge and fatal flow. That is due to President Biden and the Democratic Party standing up for a woman’s right to choose while stressing the need for federal legislation to restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land. In other words, speaking to the choir in the nation of voters.
My reading of history shows that standing up for freedoms and urging for their increase and spread is a winning strategy. Democracy runs best when the law is stable and society understands what it means and how it relates to our society. Over the past couple of years, the Supreme Court has upended, and disastrously so, the precedent about abortion. That runs counter to the prevailing mood and tone of the nation, a place very politically split on many issues. But on abortion rights, there is a strong majority of support. Most polls show it at roughly 70%–in support. Therefore, the brunt of negative reaction will be placed, correctly, upon the party who willfully undermined women’s health care.
Today the Fifth Circuit Court was rejected by the full Supreme Court, as the voters will reject Republicans this fall who wish to limit reproductive health care.
CAFFEINATED POLITICS 