Thoughts on SCOTUS decisions yesterday and today that will crucially impact all of our lives eventually, with women the primary victims today.

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Roe v. Wade has been overturned, in the wake of another life-affirming New York state law in the SCOTUS v. Bruin decision, and both debacles are contagious, as many conservative states have already demonstrated by limiting if not planning to eliminate the option to abort unwanted or impossible-to-accommodate childbirths.

Women's rights and human rights have been violated. In the first instance, the Supreme Court has opened the door to every variety of underground illegality and untold dire consequences to women's health and lifestyles if not lives themselves. It has welcomed in a new Salem witch hunt, turning neighbor against neighbor, Or is it McCarthyism reborn? 1984? Or something even worse?

The largest number of victims of this heinous repression will be, as usual, indigent people of color. Opponents of Alito's decision can predictably study the outcome after a measure of time. Affluent people will have channels to eliminate unwanted pregnancies. There will be few other abortions to count, actually. Prisons will fill up with "murderers." Again, read "indigent people of color."

Could the ERA, if enabled--it has already been passed but very belatedly--be effective in counteracting the five reactionaries? The deadline for enactment was 1979 [perhaps 1982] and this has yet to be updated, even if belatedly, triggering more litigation, ending up with the same SCOTUS. All new appointees are young enough to stalemate the Court for generations.

Today's SCOTUS decision will be chain reactive, leading to even more repression including elimination of birth control devices. Vasectomies will become illegal. So I can't summon men into the palliative picture unless they can be required, by the Court, to behave responsibly once they've impregnated a woman. And what of the "pro-life" society that insists on bringing children into the world whom parents are ill-equipped to nurture? Will they set up adoption services? Foster parenting? Do they forget about fostering life once it leaves the womb? Are they really "pro-pre-life"?

What if sexual intercourse becomes illegal except when performed to procreate? You know whose lives will be ruined.

I once asked an anti-choice proponent, a middle-aged woman, how many crack babies she was willing to adopt. She said she would adopt, not specifying how many, but later adamantly changed her mind with words along the lines of "It's a rotten stinking world we live in!"

As far as legalizing the carrying of concealed weapons in public places, the Senate passed a counteractive law yesterday making some gestures toward mitigating this headlong rush back to the days documented by John Wayne movies. Some gestures. How many of the fifteen Republican Senators who voted for this measure will be reelected? How many of the 14 Republican Members of Congress who opted to support it this afternoon?

Gun violence has been condoned and women's rights violated. Is it a gender thing? More men than women own guns in this country--40 percent of men and 22 percent of women. And women are victimized by the overturning of RvW [along with the responsible partners who stick with them].

Joe Biden was searching for possible executive orders to counteract SCOTUS this morning. The latest headlines indicate that he didn't succeed.

Authors Website: http://www.wordsunltd.com

Authors Bio:

Marta Steele is an author/editor/blogger who has been writing for Opednews.com since 2006. She is also author of the 2012 book "Grassroots, Geeks, Pros, and Pols: The Election Integrity Movement's Nonstop Battle to Win Back the People's Vote, 2000-2008" (Columbus, Free Press) and a member of the Election Integrity movement since 2001. Her original website, WordsUnLtd.com, first entered the blogosphere in 2003. She recently became a senior editor for Opednews.com. She has in the past taught college and worked as a full-time as well as freelance reporter. She has been a peace and election integrity activist since 1999. Her undergraduate and graduate educational background are in Spanish, classical philology, and historical and comparative linguistics. Her biography is most recently listed in "Who's Who in America" 2019 and in 2018 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Who's Who.