The anti-abortion movement is about to win. Even it isn't ready for what comes next.
At first glance, the April 2022 arrest of Lizelle Herrera seemed like exactly what anti-abortion advocates have always wanted. After a hospital in rural Starr County, Texas, reported her to authorities, the 26-year-old was arrested and charged with murder, her bail set at $500,000. Though few details are known about her case, Herrera’s crime, according to the indictment, was causing “the death of an individual” by “a self-induced abortion.” In just a few succinct lines, a Texas grand jury had clearly and publicly affirmed that abortion was murder, a rallying cry for opponents of the procedure for more than 40 years.
The indictment was seen by many as a direct result of the passage of SB 8, a recent Texas law that effectively bans abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The law represents an extraordinary step for the anti-abortion movement, empowering ordinary citizens to enforce the ban by suing anyone they believed had performed or aided in an abortion.
Abortion opponents have since notched another, even broader victory: A recent leaked draft opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito appeared to show that the Court plans to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision establishing Americans’ right to an abortion.
Anti-abortion activists have for decades made very clear their desire to stamp out the procedure nationwide, and they are winning: If the Court does indeed overturn Roe, abortion will likely become illegal in at least 23 states. Meanwhile, SB 8 is inspiring a wave of similar, highly restrictive anti-abortion legislation in other states, and anti-abortion groups and conservative lawmakers are said to be simultaneously positioning themselves to put forward a federal abortion ban.
Herrera’s indictment, however, was received by anti-abortion groups not as a triumph but as an unwelcome shock. As national uproar grew around the case, Texas Right to Life, the group that helped write SB 8, spoke out against Herrera’s arrest. Just days after she was jailed, Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez dismissed the indictment, saying in an April 10 statement that “it is clear that Ms. Herrera cannot and should not be prosecuted for the allegation against her.” Ramirez even went so far as to apologize to Herrera’s lawyer, saying, “I assure you I never meant to hurt this young lady,” the Washington Post reported.
Historically, anti-abortion advocates have called for restrictions and punishments targeted at abortion providers, not patients. “When we’re looking at law-breaking, we need to go to the person who is causing the danger,” Katie Glenn, government affairs counsel for the anti-abortion advocacy group Americans United for Life, told Vox. In the past, that has meant doctors.
Yet the rise of medication abortion means that people can perform their own abortions in the privacy of their homes, becoming, effectively, both provider and patient. This method, also known as self-managed abortion, is expected to become more common as laws like SB 8 and the likely fall of Roe make in-clinic procedures ever harder to obtain.
Herrera’s story, then, represents a jarring look at what could be the post-Roe future: a new phase for the anti-abortion movement, with a growing schism between mainstream groups whose next goal will be curbing access to pills, and hardliners, including one of the activists behind SB 8, who want to see private citizens jailed for terminating their own pregnancies.
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23023675/anti-abortion-movement-roe-sb8-medication-abortion
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The way God intended!
sigh.
