This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.
The other day, a judge lifted a nearly 50-year-old injunction against a 150-year-old Arizona anti-abortion law. It allows that procedure only if a woman's life is in jeopardy. A doctor who ignores it could face two to five years in jail. And so it goes (and goes and goes) in a country that's still, in part at least, extremely Trumpian and a Supreme Court that could hardly be more so.
Strange, isn't it, that the president who went out of his way to put three anti-abortion judges on the Supreme Court claimed in 1999, when he was still a real-estate magnate in New York City, that "I'm very pro-choice"? When running for president as a Republican, he would, of course, emphatically claim that "I am pro-life" (though the only accurate thing he could have said would have been "I am pro-Trump").
When he began changing his stated beliefs to fit the new Donald Trump he was promoting as a possible president, he had this exchange:
"'I know you're opposed to abortion,' CNN's Jake Tapper said to him in a June 2015 interview.
'Right,' Trump replied. 'I'm pro-choice.'
Mr. Tapper furrowed a brow. 'You're pro-choice or pro-life?'
'I'm pro-life,' Mr. Trump quickly corrected himself. 'I'm sorry.'"
A little more than a year after that, when asked about his thoughts on overturning Roe v. Wade, he assured his interviewer, Chris Wallace of Fox News, that it "will happen, automatically in my opinion," because he was sure he would have the chance to nominate several justices to the Supreme Court. How sadly right he proved to be.
The three justices he did nominate (two put in place after Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell aborted history to do so) would be crucial to the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that would make Roe a matter of history. After news of that decision came out, the former president would insist that "the biggest WIN for LIFE in a generation, along with other decisions that have been announced recently, were only made possible because I delivered everything as promised, including nominating and getting three highly respected and strong Constitutionalists confirmed to the United States Supreme Court." It mattered not at all that, in a CNN poll, 66% of Americans stood against the overturning of Roe (or that Republicans may pay for that decision in the November midterm elections).
Meanwhile, TomDispatch regular and co-founder of the Costs of War Project Andrea Mazzarino gives us a feeling for just what a disaster the Dobbs decision is likely to be for one community of Americans of which she's a part: military spouses. And while you're at it, prepare yourself. Given the Supreme Court Donald Trump willed us, there's so much more to come. Tom
Choosing Life in a Pro-Violence Society
Post-Dobbs Abortion Access for Military Dependents Is in Question
In significant parts of this country, the Supreme Court's June 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade returned Americans to a half-century-old situation in which hundreds of thousands of women, faced with unwanted pregnancies, were once forced to resort to costly, potentially deadly underground abortions. My spouse's employer, the Pentagon, recently announced that its own abortion policy, which allows military insurance to cover the procedure when a pregnancy results from rape or incest, or poses a threat to the mother's life, still holds.
Sadly enough, this seems an all-too-hollow reassurance, given the reality that pregnant women in the military are, in many places, likely to face an uphill battle finding providers trained and " here's the key, of course " willing to perform the procedure. The Supreme Court abortion ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health leaves it up to the states to determine whether to allow abortions. In doing so, it ensures that the access of military populations to that procedure will be so much more complicated, especially for spouses who need to seek off-base care, including ones like me who have chosen the military insurance option TRICARE Select that allows us to access almost exclusively civilian providers. America's 2.6 million military dependents now live in a country where an ever-changing patchwork of state laws can make seeking an abortion costly, risky, and stressful in the extreme.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
