It seems clear that the Supreme Court is going to declare abortion illegal, taking away a right that women have had for nearly 50 years. 

The Supreme Court in Roe v Wade (1973)) reflected the public’s opinion moving away from penalizing women for having an abortion. Its decision could have been written by a pollster mirroring the majority of American’s views. 

The Dodd decision is written by a Supreme Court reflecting a minority of a minority of Christian nationalists’ views. This minority of a minority view is about to become the binding law of the land, not just in the 23 states that will pass antiabortion laws, but in the whole U.S. if Republicans once more abandon women. 

These new laws criminalize having an abortion. In some places, like Texas, they allow strangers to punish people with lawsuits while reaping bounties of $10,000. Doctors may be punished for giving abortions. Women may be punished for having abortions. Distributing information about abortions, even about contraceptives, will be a crime. Welcome to the 1950s.

I was raised when prayer in school was mandatory and pervasive. The only holidays celebrated were national and/or Christian. Bibles were given to students yearly by the Gideon Society or others. Schools were segregated because God intended them to be and only outside agitators would suggest otherwise. Women who had abortions were punished and illegitimate children were shunned.

That religious heyday in the South saw 200,000 to 1.2 million deaths due to illegal abortions from 1950-60. Those numbers are, of course, estimates derived from official records. One New York study in 1965 suggested that 17% of maternal deaths in that year were attributable to illegal abortions. Making abortions illegal does not stop abortions from happening. It only means that abortions will be done illegally and probably unsafely.

Everyone today is running around trying to recreate the methods used to avoid the enforcers that were used in the ’50s and ’60s. The underground railroad that would transport women from one state to another is being reconstructed. Offers of rides are appearing on the internet. Prosecutors are announcing they won’t prosecute women for having an abortion or doctors for giving one. Doctors are already renaming abortion procedures to pass the draconian laws’ restrictions. Lawyers are brushing up on the arguments that prove a miscarriage was really a miscarriage.

One thing that is different is that information about how to do your own abortion is now readily available on the internet. It no longer is distributed by midwives or friends in secret. The morning after pill and other such medications are sold over the counter, although most of the new laws ban them, too. Those who shout the internet must be for free speech will now start advocating censorship. Intrauterine devices, the pill and other methods of contraception will once more be discussed in whispers behind closed doors.

The Religious Right are hypocrites. They know women will still get abortions when the procedure is banned. White, well-off women will travel however far they need to get abortions. Doctors will disguise their procedures to allow women who pay to have abortions. Women who are forced to term and deliver children will be shunned and ridiculed along with their children. That’s all right. Appearance is everything. Reality is nothing.

I knew a woman who had an abortion in the 1950’s. Her family put her in a mental hospital. Luckily she had a nervous breakdown. Others in her position were not so lucky.

Welcome to the 1950s. Happy Days.

Dr. Jane Elza, Ph.D., retired, is a resident of Valdosta.