Overturn the anti-abortion ruling

On April 18 the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision upholding a 2003 ban outlawing a procedure for second trimester abortions. In 2000 the court, in a 5-4 decision, found the ban unconstitutional because it denied an exemption to protect the health of the pregnant woman.

What’s changed since 2000? It’s the composition of the inherently undemocratic Supreme Court—whose justices are appointed for life by the president—with the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor, who wrote the 2000 decision, and with two new Bush-appointed anti-choice justices on the bench.

By affirming this ban, five men with no medical expertise trumped the American College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians, which has testified that the procedure is medically necessary.

Women will be maimed or die because of this decision.

The decision praised the sanctity of motherhood and patronized women, saying it was in women’s best interests—because some women might regret having such a procedure at some point in the future.

Countering that, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote in a minority opinion, “This way of thinking reflects ancient notions of women’s place in the family and under the Constitution—ideas that have long since been discredited.”

The New York Times called Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion the “new paternalism.” But there’s nothing new about it. It’s the “old patriarchy.”

Patriarchy is the centuries-old subjugation of women under male authority—in the home and office, on the assembly line, and in the laws of the state.

While the women’s liberation movement has succeeded in elevating women’s economic and social status, patriarchy persists.

Women’s right to abortion strikes at the very heart of patriarchy. It asserts that women have the right to control their bodies and their lives. That’s why there’s such a profound, continuing struggle over abortion and all the other social, economic, cultural prerequisites needed for women’s full reproductive rights.

President Bush praised the decision. It’s a vital part of his reactionary agenda. Bush, the most notorious serial killer in the world today, had the audacity to say: “The Supreme Court’s decision is an affirmation of the progress we have made over the past six years in protecting human dignity and upholding the sanctity of life.”

What about the thousands of children in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine who have died? What about poverty, homelessness, and hunger right here at home?

This decision is as much part of Bush’s war against the workers and oppressed at home as are police brutality and state-sanctioned death-row lynching, below-poverty minimum wage, attacks on unions, raids and deportations against immigrant workers, and denial of same-sex marriage.

Anti-choice forces—part of Bush’s base—will use the decision to attack abortion rights from any angle they can find in state and local legislatures. Already 30 states outlaw this type of abortion, and many are prepared to outlaw all abortion should Roe v. Wade be overturned—which Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas wrote that they were ready to do.

What can we do to fight this decision?

We have to mobilize in the streets. That’s how we were able to win Roe in the first place. We have to say it loud and clear: having the right to abortion is essential for women’s right to life.

Women and men supporters must rally and march, petition and protest in every corner of the country. That way we can build a strong, united movement to overturn this ruling.

Just as we fight to end the war in Iraq and to stop a war against Iran, we have to fight the war at home. This decision is an integral part of that war.