EDITORIAL
A Handful of Judges Rule over Abortion Rights. And They Call This Democracy?

Apr 17, 2023

A medication abortion pill, Mifepristone, used in over half of all abortions in the U.S., was just banned nationally by one appointed federal judge, Matthew Kacsmaryk, in Texas on April 7. One judge! His court-ruling outlawed one pill of a two-pill combination used for abortion.

The judge ordered it taken off the shelves for medical reasons that have no merit. In doing so, he effectively told the 64 million women of child-bearing age in the U.S that his religious views are more important than a woman deciding what is best for herself and her family.

His decision was immediately appealed, and was referred to the U.S. Supreme Court by the U.S. Department of Justice. As of this writing, Supreme Court Justice Alito has temporarily halted all lower court rulings that have put restrictions on this medication for one week.

Good news? Hardly! It is exactly like giving the fox free access to the henhouse! Or, jumping out of the frying pan into the fire! Alito is the author of the majority opinion that ended federal protections for abortion under Roe v. Wade! So, who wants this case referred to him and his cohorts on the Supreme Court?

In opinion polls, the vast majority of the men and women in the United States are not for bans on abortion. But when abortion rights were upheld across the country, in Kansas, California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont, a new attack designed at stopping abortion through banning the abortion pill was contrived, hatched by the far-right and their billionaire backers. The group that filed this lawsuit cherry-picked its location.

And while the far-right plotted, so-called progressives and moderates, the current ruling administration, the Biden Administration, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party—sat on their hands and acted like there was nothing they could do.

Nothing to do? The FDA IS an administrative arm of the government. They set the rules according to the laws that Congress writes. But the Biden administration did not instruct the FDA to ignore this rogue judge’s decision. Instead, his administration appealed to the most reactionary court in the land, this Supreme Court.

It is as if they are saying “who cares” to those most affected by this decision to ban Mifepristone, that is, working and poor women! Already, Medicaid coverage for abortion is being denied under the Hyde Amendment, which Biden and his administration signed on to. Maybe for them, it’s not a big deal that steps are being taken to eliminate, or at the very least, put restrictions on this pill, the least expensive form of abortion. Maybe they can shrug and say, “That’s how the system works.”

But women without access to abortion are forced to stay home—to raise more children in an already unaffordable economy.

The powerful, the wealthy, already show that they have no solutions to the problems that are pushing women out of the workforce. They shrug their shoulders at the dilemma of women having been pushed out of the workforce under Covid. They know that many of childbearing age have not been able to return to work, but there is no special effort to address it.

When women stay at home, it enables government to cut social services even more drastically. They can keep a skeleton crew at the social services office, at the hospital, at the nursing home, at the school. Working women, confined to the home, pick up the slack. It’s all part and parcel of the same rotten system.

The power to stop this attack is in the hands of the working class. This is not a “woman only” issue. This attack strikes at the very heart of our class.

If we have to be caregivers, social workers, nurses, cooks, servers and all the rest, let us get paid for it! Let’s fight to cut back the working hours so we can spend good time at home. Let’s get moms back out of the house and back into the workplace making a living wage that keeps up with inflation! Husbands, brothers, fathers and sons will fight alongside of us, no doubt.

Women broke out of the home and into the working world centuries ago. If Kacsmaryk, Alito, Biden or any of the other powerful men making decisions want to go home and wipe a baby’s bottom while working on-line, they can take our places, anytime! Meanwhile, the working class can organize its power to force these bosses back, and finally, to take down this broken-down, ancient relic of a system that especially oppresses women and replace it with one that makes the health and welfare of those who labor the first priority.