Why is it that the commentariat seems incapable of looking even one step ahead, when the battle plan for the right’s culture war is there for everyone to see? For example, journalists are reporting on what the post-Roe world would look like for women in red states, painting a picture of the costs, inequities and inconveniences of women having to travel out of state for an abortion.
But that picture is woefully incomplete. Do they really think the anti-abortion movement will stop with bringing down Roe, and sit on its hands as red state women travel across state lines to get the abortions that have been prohibited at home? The point is to save fetuses, not simply rid their states of abortion clinics. So after Roe is gone, red state legislatures will attempt to criminalize all conduct which assists a woman to cross state lines to obtain an abortion elsewhere.
This move was foreshadowed in the recent Texas abortion law, which permits civil actions against people who “abet” abortion, such as insurers that approve a claim; ride-share drivers who drive a patient to a clinic; anyone who shares information about abortion options; family members, clergy, rape crisis counselors or others who help someone obtain a prohibited abortion (or, under the Texas law, merely “intend” to provide such help). After Roe is gone, this law, and similar laws in other states, will most likely change this liability from civil to criminal. And the minute the GOP controls both houses of Congress and the Presidency (or a veto proof majority in Congress), federal legislation (most likely similar to the Mann Act, which makes it a federal crime to transport a woman across state lines for purposes of prostitution) will most likely prohibit any act in “interstate commerce” for purposes of facilitating access to abortions in other states.
They will not stop even there. “State’s rights” is a cause embraced by the GOP only when the left is in control of the Federal government. The principle always has been abandoned the instant that federal action in furtherance of their agenda is possible. It’s not enough for the red states to be unfettered from constitutional limits, because the Christian nationalist objective (realization of America’s destiny as the Godly kingdom) requires the taboos, specific moral dictates and even eschatological narratives of the evangelical movement to be controlling nationwide. The right will not stop until abortion is banned by federal law as well, at which point (in the absence of Roe) the blue states will no longer have the right to permit the procedure.
Abortion is the canary in the mine. With the Federal judiciary lost, should the right take control of Congress in 2022 and the White House in 2024, there will remain no barrier to full implementation of the Christian nationalist agenda. The former establishment Republicans will step aside in return for tax breaks and deregulation. As the protagonist of my book Christian Nation writes in his fictional memoir from the dystopian future, “So I suppose what happened here is that they said what they would do, and we did not listen. Then they did what they said they would do.”
To switch metaphors from the avian to the amphibian, we are frogs headed slowly to our deaths as the water in the pot boils. But worse than that, we are frogs who are willfully blind to the clear intention of those controlling the stove. If we would only open our eyes, we would see exactly what is coming.