It is probably no coincidence that feminist struggles focus and meet at both ends of life, just as they converge when it comes to defending the future. As if feminist temporality were, in a certain way, circular: the struggles waged here and now always anticipate the future, just as they repeat themselves, in waves, as the attacks return.
Thus this week, a provisional argument written by Justice Samuel Alito, of the Supreme Court of the United States, made public thanks to an unprecedented leak of information in the modern history of the highest American court, announced the impending reversal of the judgment Roe v. wadewhich for nearly half a century has protected the right to abortion in the United States.
In form, the leak is mind-blowing. Basically, however, we can not say that we did not expect it. The document obtained by the Politico site is a draft of the position that the majority of the Court would adopt in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organizationa case from Mississippi that examines the validity of the anti-abortion law passed by the state legislature in 2018, which bans almost all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
In principle, such a law violates the right to abortion first recognized in Roe v. wade in 1973, then reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Caseyin 1992. Except that the field is now clear for the conservative majority of the Supreme Court to annul the precedent established by Roe – in large part thanks to the addition, on the bench, of the three judges appointed by Donald Trump during his mandate (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett).
We’ve known it for quite a while: the days of Roe are counted. It is only the materialization of a dormant nightmare.
Nevertheless, seeing the news appear on my phone Monday evening, I felt like a wave of anxiety rising in me; the air was suddenly heavier, the room more cramped. Of course, the invalidation of Roe will not directly affect the right to abortion on our side of the border. Still, the struggle to control what happens (or not) at the very beginning of life concerns us all, as the political precedent that such an event creates weakens us all.
In Quebec, the entire political class reacted strongly when they learned of the news. In a rare moment of unanimity, everyone hastened to recall that here, we would never let such a decline pass. Justin Trudeau even announced on Wednesday the federal government’s intention to “strengthen” the right to abortion in the country — so much the better. That said, the very fact that the shock wave has made it this far says a lot about the magnitude of the threat looming. This is a debate that it is never good to revive.
There is also a strange, disturbing resonance between this backsliding on the right to abortion in the United States and the mobilizations that have been taking place in our country lately. For Mother’s Day, two feminist movements that are distinct but, fundamentally, intimately linked are joining forces on the occasion of the great demonstration Du pain et des forêt, which will take place in Quebec City on Sunday.
This large rally is the result of the efforts of the Ma place au travail movement, which has been mobilizing for more than a year to denounce the lack of childcare places, and of the Mères au front group, created in 2020 to politically invest the figure of the mother — who defends and protects — in the context of the climate crisis. The meeting of these two movements traces a tangible, concrete link between feminist and ecological struggles; a meeting which, given the circumstances, seems to go without saying.
The organization of this demonstration against the background of the resurgence of the threat to reproductive freedom is not insignificant. On the phone, Myriam Lapointe-Gagnon, spokesperson and founder of the Ma place au travail movement, said she was struck by the coincidence: “There is this event in the United States, while we also receive testimonials from women who choose abortion due to a lack of child care spaces. On all sides, on all sides, the question of free choice is threatened: the choice to work or stay at home, to have babies or not, to do what we want with our bodies. It’s the same thing. »
A few days before the demonstration, she explains to me that the encounter between the struggles undertaken by the Mothers at the front (for the climate) and by My place at work (for access to daycare) is woven from several threads. Reproductive, social and environmental issues go hand in hand, and it is no coincidence that attacks and setbacks are multiplying and accumulating at this precise moment in our history.
As the climate pot heats up, the rights of women, children and vulnerable people are called into question thanks to the rise of authoritarian, fascistic currents, inclined to affirm an order of the past in the face of the imminence of the disaster. Thus, the apprehended setbacks in the right to abortion, the failures of Quebec’s family policy and the lack of political ambition to deal with the climate crisis must be understood as two sides of the same coin.
Except that Sunday, for Mother’s Day, in Quebec, there will be an opportunity to make other voices heard for the rest of the world. I will go there and on Monday I will tell you more.