A bad time to be a "pregnant uterus-haver"
What will happen when Woke Ideology meets abortion restrictions?
I don’t normally write something in reaction to a just-happened current event, as I prefer to let all the furor settle down enough that I can see the issue clearer. And I’m not going to weigh in on the issue itself—which is a leaked court opinion which will likely overturn Roe vs. Wade—but rather pose a discussion question for you all.
Because it’s hard not to notice the strange moment we’re in. The ‘right to an abortion’ enshrined in Roe vs. Wade (which is technically not the enshrinement of a right at all, only a federal ban on state laws regulating “pre-viable” terminations of pregnancy) has existed for several decades. If it’s overturned, then individual states can make their own laws according to the “will of the people” of the state. That means they can either ban abortion, make it fully legal up to the last day of pregnancy, or anything in-between without the federal government interfering.
What’s most interesting to me is that this is happening at a moment when “woman” is not seen as a biologically or politically relevant category. In fact, I’ve already seen quite a few progressive journals try to use any one of the various Woke euphemisms in lieu of that most controversial and verboten phrase, “pregnant women.”
The problem for them, as you probably know, is that some non-binary people can get pregnant too. So also can trans men. But trans women, who are ‘fully women,’ cannot get pregnant. Thus, if you say ‘a woman’s right to an abortion,’ you have just excluded non-binary people and trans men, while wrongfully included trans women.
Thus, we have phrases such as “pregnant uterus-havers,” “gestators,” or “pregant women and other pregnant people,” or just “pregnant people.”
I have no certainty about how all this will go, but I’m thinking we may see a resurgence in the insistence that it’s okay to say “women” and maybe not at all necessary to clarify that you also mean “people born female who do not identity as women” and do not mean to include “people born male who identity as women.”
In other words, the more concrete political urgency of the matter for many people will make the more esoteric (and often really clumsy and ridiculous) language and theory become both irrelevant and unwelcome.
Because honestly, it’s going to be really hard to rally people with phrases like “protect a pregnant uterus-haver’s right to choose,” or “trans-women, cis-men, and assigned-male-at-birth non-binary people should not be allowed to make decisions on what trans-men, assigned-female-at-birth non-binary people, and cis-women do with their bodies.”
We’ll see, huh? Either way, glad I’m not in the United States for all this.
Tell me what you’re thinking about all this, but please be nice and assume good faith. I’ve just as many far-leftist atheists reading me as there are traditional Catholics, so please read each other’s comments with curiosity rather than anger. Maybe even make a new friend. :)
Women in the US no longer have anywhere to turn politically. The right wants to obliterate their right to control their bodies, the left wants to obliterate their right to single-sex spaces, shelters, and events (eg sports).
The Democrats' odious Equality Act would allow any man to declare hinself to be a woman, for any length of time, long or short, and then enter any women-only space or event.
For example, compete for prize money in professional tennis. Sue the WNBA for illegal gender discrimination for not putting him on a professional womens' basketball team.
A rape by such a man has already occured in a prison in New York, where (like California) this is already state law.
The patriarchy has won, big time. It now completely controls both the left and the right in the US.
From a political standpoint: conservatives in the US have been planning for this for decades and they executed their plan. I think a lot of people chose to believe they wouldn’t actually follow through. Anyone who is surprised at this just hasn’t paid attention.
Democrats gave them a big assist. Clinton squandered his presidency. Obama declined to make passing federal legislation a priority. Ginsburg refused to retire when she could be replaced by someone similar politically. Their electoral strategy is broadly a failure, putting all of their eggs in the basket of the presidency and Supreme Court while losing at the state and local levels.
There was also a middle path on abortion they’ve long ignored or only offered token support: address the material conditions in the United States so that there are less abortions. Actual healthcare reform, universal programs to support people and children, etc. Abortions should be safe, legal, and private choices but no one should have to choose that route because of economic insecurity.
I think a lot of wokeness is occurring among the class of people who don’t experience actual economic insecurity or are even engaged with the material world. It’s jockeying for upper middle class administrative positions, for lucrative consulting contracts, and the like. I’m not sure this ruling will really impact them precisely for that reason: abortions will still be available in the richer, blue states they live in. It still won’t impact them materially. Many will make out really well, starting non profits off of this, fund raising for PACs, etc.