Our iceberg is not far away
By Francine Prose
Bow, the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade is hardly a surprise. We knew it was imminent since Judge Alito’s memo leaked about a month ago. And yet it still delivers a deep shock in fact, a series of shocks. Stunned, we ask, how could this have happened? as if we hadn’t known for weeks that this was more or less a done deal. What’s shocking is Handmaid’s Tale’s chilling update: our growing suspicion that Margaret Atwood’s fictional dystopia a society in which women are forced to bear children and brutally punished for disobedience is closer to become a reality than we would have imagined. What is shocking is this evidence of the will and the ability of the court to control and punish women, to deprive us of our constitutional rights. What is shocking is the judges’ reckless disregard for the additional suffering this ruling will cause poor women, women of color and those living in rural areas. What is shocking is the memory of three of the current judges swearing, under oath, to uphold the precedent set by Roe v Wade. What is shocking is to realize that we live in a country that now boasts some of the most misogynistic and repressive laws in the world. What is shocking is knowing that the institution I grew up seeing as committed to the constitution’s most precious safeguards and the highest and most reasonably bipartisan ideals of justice is now in the hands of a powerful faction of extremists. But what shocks me most is the fact that, according to surveys that keep surfacing and being reported, a large majority of Americans Support right to abortion and oppose outright prohibition. According to the latest Gallup poll, 85% of the population thinks abortion should be legal under certain circumstances. What is remarkable is not so much this high number as the discrepancy between this figure and the substance of the Supreme Court’s decision. What is shocking is yet another fact that we have known or suspected for some time: that we live under minority rule, that in some of the most essential ways the wishes of the majority do not determine more government policy, and that it has become something of a joke to suggest that our government, at the highest level, responds to “the will of the people”. Meanwhile, these shocks are intensified and amplified by how little we seem willing or able to deal with the slow-motion stealth with which the seeds of autocracy are planted. “We live under minority rule,” we say, then throw the kids’ birthday parties, try to get a job and pay the bills, complain at the gas pump, see our friends, celebrate the good weather and the newfound freedom occasioned by the latest downturn in the pandemic. Social media is full of valuable and necessary suggestions for getting around the new measures: how to get abortion pills abroad, how to help women get to states where abortion is still legal. But I have yet to see a truly viable, large-scale plan to influence lawmakers in the so-called “trigger states” that banned abortion in the immediate wake of the Supreme Court ruling. It’s hard not to notice that our passivity is encouraged by the mainstream media’s commitment to “fair and balanced” reporting. In the coverage I watched on Judgment Night not just on prime time channels but on PBS equal space was given to the exultation of “pro-lifers” (that unfortunate term suggesting that its opponents are anti life) and to the anger and disappointment of women who only want to keep control of their own bodies. How can this not add to our feeling that the country is equally divided, deeply and hopelessly divided into factions, and therefore nothing can be done? In fact, the two sides are not equal, but one side is severely under-represented in the places where it matters most. It has never been more important to insist on our rights not only as women, not only as Americans, but as human beings. We need to talk to our friends, make plans, apply relentless pressure on our state and local governments, hold every political candidate accountable. We may need to forget our pressing worries about inflation and gas prices just long enough to take to the streets, with relentless frequency and in greater numbers, to make our convictions and our voices heard. Because the biggest shock of all would be to wake up one morning and find that while we were driving the kids to football practice and enjoying that welcome drink after work, more and more of our rights had been stripped, as has happened in so many of the countries where democracy disappeared, overnight and in the dark when, so to speak, no one was looking. The reversal of Roe v Wade should shock us even more than it already does shock us by looking beyond the Titanic’s dance floor and spotting this iceberg, looming in our path, not so far away. Francine Prose is the author, most recently, of The Vixen. She also served as president of Pen America.