This Oklahoma case gives us a horrifying glimpse of the post-Roe future

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

What will America be like for women if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood, the cases that, respectively, established and upheld a constitutional right to abortion? For an answer to that question, you need look no further than the sad and outrageous story of an Oklahoma woman named Brittany Poolaw.

As Michelle Goldberg recounts in her powerful New York Times column on the case, Poolaw, then 19 years old, took marijuana and methamphetamine while pregnant and suffered a miscarriage at 17 weeks. She was then arrested, charged with first-degree manslaughter, and sent to jail for a year and a half while awaiting trial (because she couldn't afford a $20,000 bond). Earlier this month, she was convicted in a one-day trial and sentenced to four years in prison.

If prosecutors in Oklahoma can charge, convict, and imprison a woman for manslaughter following a miscarriage, how likely will they be to charge, convict, and imprison women for murder following abortions if the Supreme Court eliminates constitutional strictures on doing so? The answer is: Extremely likely — almost certain.

Goldberg notes that anti-abortion activists regularly claim they merely wish to protect the lives of the unborn, not punish women. (When Donald Trump suggested during his 2016 presidential run that women should face "some form of punishment" for terminating pregnancies, pro-life advocates tried to distance themselves from the remark.) But if abortion is murder, as pro-lifers insist, then women who procure abortions are contract killers, just as those who perform the procedures are assassins for hire and those who pay for or otherwise facilitate the acts are accomplices. An America in which numerous states treat abortion as legally and morally tantamount to murder is an America in which women are going to be arrested, convicted, and jailed for ending their pregnancies.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/oklahoma-case-gives-us-horrifying-160021800.html

[milestogo]

1. I'm watching the Handmaid's Tale for a second time.

I can easily see the Christian right grabbing power and using it to maim or kill anyone who doesn't fit their vision. A lot of these people are hateful, punitive, and morally depraved.

A dystopian future is no longer outrageous.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. I have to push back on the "horrifying future" setup. This is happening *now.*

"Horrifying future" is often used to describe laws or changes that make it more likely for middle-class white people to be treated like poor, nonwhite people or people who are otherwise marginalized. We already don't have reproductive justice. There is no "horrifying future" -- we're living it now.

[onecaliberal]

3. K&R