We're Pro-life/ So Let's Kill Women

Criminalizing Women's Bodies

​ ​​Last week in South Carolina, Rob Harris a member of the S.C. State Legislature, committed the latest assault on women's rights when he introduced a bill that would equate abortion to homicide and give mothers who get an abortion the death penalty. It's not the first time that this sort of extremist legislation has been introduced across the country, and most likely, as before, its cartoonish villainy will prevent its passage into law. However, the very extreme nature of the legislation acts as a smoke screen, distracting from the other criminalizing legislation currently being passed through South Carolina. Some of you might be surprised to see this behavior from Republican state legislatures, especially because it seemed like 2022 was a massive repudiation of efforts to roll back women's human rights. In elections and ballot measures in red and purple states voters showed up and resoundingly declared they did not want women to lose their rights and reproductive freedoms. Yet South Carolina is hardly the only Republican legislature to be pursuing anti-women’s rights legislation, in fact, 13 states have already issued laws criminalizing abortion just since last Summer. In that short time we've seen and highlighted here at DSOT the devastating consequences, suffering, and death already resulting from these unscientific and un-empathetic laws. The reality of course is that we shouldn't be surprised to see the Republican Party pursuing anti-democratic and minority rule goals, as popularity of their ideas hasn't been a prerequisite for Republican politicians pursuing them for decades. Instead, we have to recognize this behavior is about fulfilling a promise to a zealous ideological core, and creating a structure where they can to keep control without input or even consent from the citizenry. This sort of minority-rule politics flourishes in a political economy which values, and listens to, donor-class money, a minority among the minority, instead of the interests of the American people. The regressive politics of Republicans are more obviously out-of-step with the needs and opinions of the American people than the Democratic party, but we should lose sight that it is the system at-large that allows politicians to ignore their constituents in favor of wealthy donors. This permeates across both parties and prevents our democracy from flourishing and responding to the will of the people. The debate is over, and the people have spoken in polls, ballot measures and elections: the great majority of Americans fundamentally think that women have the right to control their own bodies. As we continue through Women's History Month we have to join together each week in economic and political solidarity to make sure that this moment is merely a dark blip in the women's history movement and struggle for freedom, rather than the beginning of a dark unrepresentative period. So, join us each Tuesday in growing solidarity as we fight to make sure that the rights of all are respected, and women’s very bodies are criminalized! #DSOT #UPM