Within American civil society, resistance is being organized after the invalidation, a little over two weeks ago, of the judgment Roe v. wade by the United States Supreme Court. But she can’t do everything. This resistance lacks an essential ingredient: the unequivocal support of the Biden administration, which the left wing of the Democratic Party has harshly criticized for its softness in defending the right to abortion.
The recent decision having returned to the States the right to decide individually, the front of the fight is moving and fragmenting, inevitably. Thus, organizations for the defense of women’s rights have so far multiplied their recourse to the courts in a good dozen states to obtain interim injunctions blocking the entry into force of anti-abortion laws, just as they have succeeded in do it in Kentucky and Louisiana, in particular. But there is a larger battle: that of proving that the constitutions of several states establish a right to abortion that the Supreme Court says does not exist in the American constitution.
An arduous and long-term struggle, it goes without saying, during which the lives and health of hundreds of thousands of women are put at risk. In erasing the right to abortion, a recent study indicates, the risk is that the death rate among pregnant women will increase globally by more than 20% — and by more than 30% among black women. As if life for so many women weren’t hard enough in this empire of inequality that is the United States.
An uncertain fight, moreover, given the tendency of legislative assemblies and courts to become more right-wing. The fact is, over the past decade, the Republican Party, with lobbies like the Federalist Society and the Judicial Crisis Network, has invested heavily in campaign funding for conservative, anti-abortion judges — since in the United States, see You, supreme court judges are elected by universal suffrage in no less than 38 states. The mid-term legislative elections next November will reshuffle the cards in some of them. In what sense and in what proportion?
Admittedly, the Democrats are not innocent in the face of this politicization of justice, but they have invested less financially and have been doing so for less time. Still, today we take the measure of this moralistic and religious right: access to abortion – we know the figure – is today restricted, threatened with restrictions or outright prohibited in 26 states.
Epic legal battles are brewing over the constitutionality of abortion rights in Kentucky, Michigan, Kansas, Montana and Florida, among others. Florida will ultimately be the site of a major test: its Bill of Rights recognizes the right to privacy and, on this basis, its Supreme Court has struck down laws restricting access to abortion. However, since 2019, the court has been entirely conservative, courtesy of Ron DeSantis, a Republican governor with “pro-life” convictions and presidential aspirations. To what extent will the Florida Constitution and case law be respected?
It is heartbreaking that, in the face of such a reactionary assault on the right of women to live freely, President Joe Biden, the man who promised to give the United States a Rooseveltian second wind, does not rise to the barricades. May his government not be more proactive. That he does not send his vice-president, Kamala Harris, into the fray, of whom one wonders why she is so absent.
In 1973, having just been elected senator for the first time, Biden’s first reaction to Roe v. wade had been to say that the Supreme Court had gone “too far”. Its position has progressed with the political winds, but it has basically remained ambivalent, bogged down in the soft center of the party.
However, there are concrete avenues to explore to guarantee access to abortion, beyond the decree without far-reaching that he signed last Friday.
Declare a public health emergency to ensure that women have the right to obtain abortion pills by mail in states where abortion is illegal; using Medicaid, the public health insurance system, to fund interstate travel for the purpose of having an abortion; make federal lands available, as Senator Elizabeth Warren has suggested, for the installation of abortion clinics and reproductive health counseling services… So many gestures, among others, to be made there, right away. Failing that, Mr. Biden’s irresolution makes the situation worse. He calls on the Democrats to mobilize in November to get out and get the country out of trouble. Given its unpopularity, it is very insufficient.