Huge sigh of relief.
In a ruling that I happily admit surprised me, the Supreme Court on Thursday stated the obvious: Women should have the right to safe medical abortions.
But ladies, our wombs are not safe yet.
For now, in a unanimous decision, the judges have dismissed a case that would have prevented the drug mifepristone from being used by women seeking to terminate pregnancies.
Therefore, mify, as the drug is commonly called, is safe. But this is far from the end of MAGA's war on women.
Let's be clear about this: the ruling did not actually concern the drug. These were the people who filed the lawsuit, a group of doctors who really didn't have much reason to prevent millions of women from accessing care, other than they didn't like the care those women wanted.
That's not really a reason to sue, even by the standards of Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.
So, this decision refers to “legal standing” and the fact that these doctors did not have it. Anti-abortion activists are already lining up other cases with defendants whose legal footing is much stronger.
And the Supreme Court is not the only front in this war for women's rights. Here are three more ways the far right wants to control female bodies:
First, “fetal personality” has emerged as a terrifying impulse on the part of the religious right.
Alito hinted at this concept in the Dobbs ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade, when he referred to an embryo as an “unborn human being.”
In Alabama, we saw this gain more traction recently when state Supreme Court justices ruled that embryos created during in vitro fertilization must be considered protected human life (although the state Legislature has for now protected the procedure).
And this week, the Southern Baptist Conference, which represents more than 10 million Protestant Americans, announced that it would now oppose IVF on the grounds that embryos are life.
If the courts recognize the idea of the personhood of the fetus, they would pave the way for abortion to be considered not only illegal, but also murder. It would also give the state the right to surveil pregnant women in any way it deems necessary to protect the “unborn child.”
We are already seeing some states attempt to prosecute women for abortions under strict new abortion laws and dozens of states (like Kansas) have direct legal language granting rights to fetuses or language that comes close to them. We are closer to this than you think.
The second front of the war against women is contraception.
Although it seems crazy to most of us to prohibit women from taking the pill or an emergency medication immediately after sex to prevent pregnancy, some people do want to ban it as a form of abortion.
There is a logic to it. If all abortion is illegal, then anything that affects the embryo after conception is prohibited.
Finally, there is former President Trump.
I've written before about the Comstock Act, a dark and angry old law that many speculated the Supreme Court justices might trot out in this mifepristone case.
That law (which is on the books, but not enforced) theoretically makes it illegal to mail anything that could be used in an abortion, not just medications. Hardliners might argue that anything sent to an abortion clinic to help it operate could be banned, even latex gloves.
MAGA types are already raising the terrifying notion that if Trump were elected, he could simply bypass the courts and Congress and order his Justice Department to enforce the Comstock Act, ending access to abortion without technically ending access the same.
This week, Trump sent a recorded message to the Danbury Institute, an ultraconservative organization that has advocated for abortion to be prosecuted as homicide and called it “child sacrifice.”
He didn't mention abortion, but there is this:
“These will be your years, because you are going to make a comeback like no other group,” he said. “I know what is happening, I know where you come from and where you are going, and I will be with you side by side.”
So while Thursday's ruling is a welcome victory in the fight to maintain women's equality, it is a victorious battle.
The war continues.
