Deep In the Void-Like Heart of Texas

The news of Texas’ abortion should have, because it does have, an effect on everyone. The internet is rife with satire, parody, and comparisons to various dystopic fiction over the situation. While this is a great way to vent the spleen, it remains an utterly fruitless endeavor. What the Supreme Court of the United States has allowed to take place is extreme, frightening, and sad in a way few can accurately describe. The shock, the worry, at what we all saw written on the wall coming to fruition.

I wrote here about the extraordinarily fascist bent the country was taking prior to the 2020 presidential election. Prior to the Capital being overrun. Prior to even more extreme and allowed voter suppression laws being passed. For me, it wasn’t even about Trump’s presidency, necessarily, but about what his presidency allowed to become common place, outspoken, and pride driven. Now, as we close in on the last quarter of 2021, things have continued along the same tract.

Just as last year shed light not only on the incredible lengths this country has gone to cover up its historical and continuing systemic oppression of BIPOC peoples, it also gave birth to full-blown hatred being the rallying cry of the right (and even the left, to an extent). People watched their filtered news and felt moral acceptance at voicing their hatred, a “if they can shine a light that makes me dislike myself, I can shine a light on why I dislike them,” mentality. Religious, nationalistic, and full-blown fascistic thinking has gained the spotlight and become the norm.

The news out of Texas is troubling for a multitude of reasons, but I will try to maintain focus on just a few. Firstly, the safety of women, doctors, and gig drivers due to the deputization and bounties placed on those seeking or assisting in medical procedures. Just as ICE began deputizing citizens and DHS deputized local law enforcement last year, we know the public has even less control and awareness than their poorly trained federal counterparts. Add a $10,000 incentive and any semblance of what we as a country consider “lawful” goes out the window. The fact that the men who caused pregnancies leading to a wanted abortion face none of these is a glaring affront to women specifically and humanity generally.

When you make a safe medical procedure punishable by law, in the country that already has the highest rate of maternal and infant death at birth in the West, you are actively working against humanity. This being the case, there is nothing that can be said or work to be done, that hasn’t been done already to try and remedy this. The contradictions and logical fallacies of religion-based law mean nothing to those passing the laws. They don’t see their definition of the “sanctity of life” as refutable.

The most glaringly misguided principle of this, besides the glaringly misguided views held by those who passed this law (and laws similar), is that the other major religions of the world have had and worked with abortion as a necessary fact of life for millennia, which I wrote about here. The fact that religiously based views on life are being passed into law has been, and will always be, disgusting. You are free to believe what you will, but the second you force that belief or way of life on others, you have negated all ethical and moral standing you may have once had. Which leads us to the Supreme Court’s role in this.

The Supreme Court’s next session begins on October 4th. Among the cases listed on the docket is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the decision of which could end up being the end to legalized abortions country wide. By the Supreme Court refusing to hear this case before the law went into effect, they have set legal precedent for all future cases involving abortion, including Dobbs v. JWHO. Having this precedent already set makes the outcome all but guaranteed unless serious, radical action is taken, now.

As a full-blown health crisis for women, this is bad. The fact that this, along with the rest of the American medical system, is already systemically built to work against BIPOC women, means it will be exponentially worse for those communities. We, as a country, have morally, ethically, and unequivocally lost sight of all semblances of humanity. The most frustrating aspect of this being, it has always been this way. The fact that these laws are passing now may seem sudden and shocking and frightening. To an extent, they are. However, they are even more so when taken in with the larger picture of what this country was founded on 250 years ago and how we still operate on those archaic notions.

The only recourse is to stand up for the just. Men more than women. Women have been in this fight since birth, and this is where we ended up. We must be loud. We must be vigilant. We must give religious nationalism no quarter, now, or ever. If we fail, we all sleep in the fascistic bed that’s been made for us.