If you don’t think this country is moving toward a theocracy, you’re not paying attention.
The pulse of events that bring us closer to a seemingly inevitable future is so steady and frequent that we develop rage fatigue and become numb.
For example, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that frozen embryos are children and the destruction of those embryos, even by accident, falls under the state’s wrongful death of minors law. Chief Justice Tom Parker of the Supreme Court wrote in a concurring opinion that “all human beings bear the image of God before they are born, and their lives cannot be destroyed without diminishing the glory of God.” wrote.
The ruling could mean reduced access to reproductive health care in Alabama if professionals in the field of IVF simply choose to practice in states that do not threaten their efforts.
Although there have been cases in the past where embryos were destroyed due to negligence, the Alabama ruling significantly raises the burden. It essentially turns your cryopreservation tank into a frozen seedbed.
That idea is ridiculous and unscientific. Rather, it is connected to a religious movement that demeans women’s personhood by giving personality to frozen embryos.
I called Sean Tipton, chief advocacy and policy officer at the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, and he said, “One of the issues in the abortion debate is, ‘Is it really about abortion or is it really about control of women and sex?'” And this is the idea that it’s not just about abortion. is clearly revealed. “There has never been a more pro-life medicine available than in vitro fertilization, and this decision clearly threatens its ability to continue,” he said.
Control over a woman’s body is the final stage. And some religious conservatives won’t stop until that goal is achieved. As such, intervention victories, such as the Roe v. Wade reversal, will never be considered sufficient. They only strengthen the blinding sense of justice.
Reproductive rights lawsuits that could reach the Supreme Court are spreading across the United States. The Supreme Court is the same court that appoints one-third of its justices and that President Donald Trump boasts about reforming. The legal and political battles over these issues are far from over, and protection of women’s remaining rights is far from certain.
The only thing that seems to be temporarily stopping Congressional Republicans from pushing for a nationwide abortion ban is that they have been saying for years that their goal is simply to allow individual states to enact their own laws. After all this time, the issue of reproductive choice has become the electoral loser. their party.
But now President Trump is reportedly privately discussing supporting a nationwide 16-week abortion ban with some exceptions.
This is what many of his supporters want, and many of them believe that he was specifically chosen by God to further a theocratic purpose. That’s one reason they overlook Trump’s obvious flaws and the fact that he himself is not a particularly religious person.
It is notable that much of the right-wing initiatives, including on the abortion issue, are led by men who want to have children but cannot, reflecting the imbalance between power and expectations that can be passed on to younger generations. worth it. An interesting new report from Pew Research finds that even though men and women between the ages of 18 and 34 are “about equally likely to say they want to get married,” 57% of young men say they want to have children someday. However, only 45% of young women answered this question.
Abortion is just one front on which this religious battle is being waged. As of last week, the ACLU was tracking 437 anti-LGBTQ bills being considered in state legislatures.
Additionally, there are alarming efforts by conservative groups to change and reorganize the federal government in ways that limit American freedoms, and, according to Politico, to bring Christian nationalist ideas to the second Trump administration. He said he was even trying to doze off.
For those who promote these ideas, God’s will is more important than the will of the American people, even if Americans disagree or oppose them.
One idea among various proposals is reportedly to invoke the Insurrection Act on Trump’s first day in office, prompting the deployment of military against protesters.
We are dangerously close to all of this becoming a reality, potentially aided and abetted by disaffected Democratic voters.
I’m talking about a single issue that drives President Biden to a standstill, whether it’s opposition to President Biden’s position on the Israel-Hamas war, disappointment with the overall state of the economy, or concerns about the president’s age. Many Democrats are against it, and they haven’t committed to: Those supporting his re-election seem to have no idea that in November they are facing the most existential electoral decision this country has ever faced.
If these Democrats decide to punish Biden in silence, they could end up carrying out one of the greatest acts of self-immolation in recent political history. It would abandon a regime committed to protecting democracy, and perhaps allow the rise of a theocracy intended to protect it. It is destroying the very freedoms that progressives hold dear.