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We Have Entered the “Anti-Gender” Endgame
We are not going back to the way things were before Roe v. Wade. We’re going somewhere much worse.
Roe v. Wade is dead. I’ve written that sentence so many times, for so many years, that it barely registers. I’ve been mourning the loss for half a decade. I’m used to mourning now. Still, looking at the actual decision — written by Samuel Alito, leaked to Politico last night — it’s clear that the death of Roe is going to be darker than I had envisioned.
We are not going back to the way things were before legal abortion. We are going somewhere much worse.
After Roe is overturned, abortion will become illegal in all or most circumstances in 21 states. The “right to privacy” on which Roe hinges was established in an earlier case, Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right to contraception; Alito specifically names Griswold as a faulty ruling, and it will almost certainly be overturned as well, making birth control illegal. This might not immediately inspire panic — why not just go to a safe state to get your abortion or your IUD? — but the states that pass abortion bans will also pass travel bans. If you leave home pregnant and come back otherwise, that itself will be illegal.
