Shall we talk numbers?
One in four American women will have an abortion in her lifetime, according to a study published in 2017. Most Americans support the right to abortion. In the general population, support for legalizing abortion has been relatively stable and today stands at 59%, against 37% who disapprove.
Support for abortion among men is 59%, and 62% among women. Today, 58% of American women of reproductive age live in states “hostile” to abortion, reveals a study by the Guttmacher Institute. Support for abortion rises to 87% in the general population in cases where the health of the mother is at risk and to 84% in cases of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest.
Among Catholics — about 21% out of a population of 334 million — 48% say a woman should have the right to terminate a pregnancy “in most cases”, with 47% declaring against it and 5% having no opinion, according to with the latest Pew Research Center survey.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that 49% of women who have abortions in the US live below the poverty level. Only 33% are white, and 60% have had at least one child.
The decline in the number of legal abortions in the US has been significant and continuous since the 1980s. From a high of 30 abortions per 1,000 women, it dropped to 13.5, a drop attributed in part to regular access to contraceptives and education programs that reduced sexual activity among adolescents.
Elections have consequences. The American evangelical right-wing radical struck a bargain with a New York playboy with a notoriously promiscuous past. In exchange for funding Donald Trump’s candidacy, evangelicals gathered at a Times Square hotel in 2016 were assured that he would outfit the Supreme Court and federal courts with conservative judges.
The grotesque pact produced a victory this week when the draft written by Judge Samuel Alito that opens the way to recriminalize abortion in dozens of states was leaked. The astonishing leak of the document could be the work of progressive insiders outraged by the defeat or an effort to harness the four judges (three appointed by Trump) who endorsed the position.
As explained to Sheet historian Anne Nelson, on the first anniversary of the January 6 coup attempt, the invasion of the Capitol was a rehearsal for the American right that no longer has the hope of coming to power by vote. The plan organized by the conservative religious American minority, whose epicenter is the obscure Council for National Policy, has lasted 40 years and has resisted demographic changes that form an electorate at odds with this project of power.
A great ally of the minority dictatorship project is the Jurassic Senate, which grants two seats to each of the 50 American states. Thus, the three lying judges Trump planted on the Supreme Court — all three of whom swore under oath in the hearings that they would respect legal abortion — got the job for life thanks to senators from depleted rural states.
Democratic senators represent 41.5 million more voters than Republicans. The fate of legal abortion and possibly same-sex marriage, among other issues dear to the far right, is in the hands of a small togado whose advocates have been elected by a minority.
