National Abortion Ban and Maybe a 28th Amendment?
Well, January was a heck of a decade, huh? Planes crashing, bird flu, and a news cycle that’s giving post-Soviet Russia as the oligarchs take over vibes.
If watching the “Christian” Nationalists try and live out their fever dream by controlling the US government has you down, there’s at least some good news on the Suspiciously Optimistic front. The editors at the University of Kansas have given me a verbal offer of a book contract and are preparing the real thing as we speak! That’s right, my “why would you want to talk to moms?” dissertation, Birthzillas and Madwives is going to make its own splash in the world.
In anticipation of that, I’m also three episodes into a podcast. If you haven’t already, check out Birthzillas: The Podcast. We’re available on most platforms. There’s also an Instagram (that has some content), a YouTube page (that so far has no content), and a Facebook page. So, like and share widely as we change maternal health care through sharing birth stories!
Speaking of women’s health, some news events to keep on your radar.
I told you so! Congress introduces National Abortion Ban
In their continuing assault on women’s rights, Republicans in Congress have introduced a national abortion ban. I try not to say I told you so, but for over a decade I’ve been accused of over-reacting about this, so I’m going to make an exception: I [expletive] told you so!
This ban, judging by the title, relies on a consistently delusional reading of the 14th Amendment, from the same guys who want to strip the 14th Amendment of its actual power. Keep an eye on this situation because it could get bad quickly. Remember that if you personally don’t want an abortion, that’s fine. Don’t get one. But even in a world where every pregnancy is wanted and celebrated, abortions will still be necessary.
Around 30% of pregnancies end in miscarriage. A lot of these are early, before people know they are pregnant, but some require medical assistance. This is an abortion. Abortion restrictions are already killing women who are miscarrying. Which is no surprise because states with higher abortion restrictions have a history of higher maternal mortality.
Women in the Military be on guard
Next up. Trump’s wholly unqualified, occasionally falling down drunk while in his uniform which is illegal, domestic abuser with allegations of sexual abuse, “Christian” nationalist, serial cheater, of a Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth does not want women in the military. Trump dismissed the head of the Coast Guard, a woman, and signed an Executive Order potentially banning trans people from the military.
Why I’m worried (aside from the obvious)? Trump has ordered the Department of Justice (the head of which is possibly even less qualified than Pete Hegseth!) to halt civil rights litigation and signed another Executive Order rescinding (or maybe not anymore because he’s the King of two-steps back) equal employment protections. This is exactly what you want to do if you want to fire women for being, you know, women. Take away to protections while simultaneously undercutting the institution that could sue for redress. They are methodically and legally stripping women of our rights.
It'd be real nice to have an Equal Rights Amendment
It’d be real nice to have an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) about now, and we, like, maybe do?
On his way out the door Biden said, we totally had a 28th Amendment: the Equal Rights Amendment. But no one’s sure if that’s true. Why the question?
The ERA was first proposed in the 1970s. The idea was that you couldn’t discriminate on the basis of sex. Unfortunately, sentient cat vomit in a human suit, Phyllis Schlafly decided to sell out her sister so that she could get a pat on the head from men who would never see her as anything more than, at best, a lap dog. And get this, part of the complaints were about the ERA maybe making boys and girls have to use the same bathroom. Now, I hate Freud, but this fixation on restrooms among the right-wingers feels pathological.
So, the ERA goes underground. But then in 2020, Virginia becomes the last state needed to ratify the ERA as the 28th Amendment. Job done, right? Not so fast. There was a deadline put on the ERA that it needed to be ratified by the 1980s. So, some say that Virginia ratifying it is too little, too late.
For this reason, the archivist refused to publish it and thereby add it to the collection of Amendments.
But wait, there’s more! The archivist has no clear power under the Constitution. Congress gave the archivist the power to certify the ratification of each state, and that’s about it. So, in theory, and according to legal Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe, we’re good. Yay, ERA!
Not so fast. If Virginia ratified the ERA in 2020 and it was the law of the land, then surely, Biden would have used it in Court during the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health (2022) case which eroded women’s rights. But he didn’t. In so (not) doing, and in fact in never using the 28th Amendment, Biden gave tacit consent to the idea that the archivist has the power to determine whether the ratification process was valid.
No problem, Biden had a chance to get a new archivist in 2023. So, he picked someone on board with his “liberal” values, and we’re good.
Did you fall for that? I hope not, because I couldn’t write it without laughing. No, Biden, picked an archivist who said she would not certify the ERA and had a history of allegation of racism (and is married to a guy affiliated with the right-wing super-funders, the Koch brothers).
But don’t worry, because by the time it was too late to do anything about it, Biden shouted into the atmosphere that the 28th Amendment is the “law of the land,” so apparently, that’s good enough?
Suspiciously Optimistic
After all this you may be asking why I’m suspiciously optimistic, or whether it’s time to change my name to optimistically suspicious. At the moment, I’m certainly frustrated, but I think there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic. If Trump does kick all the women out of the military, there’s going to be a mass of angry, well-trained, armed trans people and women who are no longer required to play by Trump’s rules. That could get fun.
Really, I think this coup is going to get bad and then worse before it gets better. But I think it will get better. Maybe this comes from wishful thinking, or maybe it comes from walking into the living room one night and seeing the Berlin Wall coming down, which had been impossible the day before. I was only a young kid and didn’t really get it, but I know hope when I see it. So, my plan is to be the Aragorn, son of Arathorn, that I want to see in the world and tell you: there is always hope.
