“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
Perhaps President Joe Biden wasn’t as poetic as the late 17th Century author William Congrevein describing the wrath of mistreated women. But his words, during his State of the Union speech, were equally perceptible. Speaking directly to a majority of U.S. Supreme Court Justices seated before him, the president issued an ominous warning:
“With all due respect, justices, women are not without electoral or political power and you’re about to realize just how much.”
Biden voiced the outrage of many women after Supreme Court justices, in 2022, overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that declared the right to an abortion as a fundamental liberty. The reversal, which basically demolished federal protections for abortion, has resulted in political backlash mostly from women voters.
“These attacks will stir women who are the most resilient beings on this planet. They will make themselves heard in November.”-Rev. Dr. Love Holt, community engagement specialist with Abortion Action Missouri
In February, Missouri Republicans successfully thwarted an effort to add rape and incest exceptions to the state’s near-total abortion ban. Even before Roe was overturned, for decades, state Republicans relied on so-called “TRAP” (targeted regulation of abortion providers) laws to whittle down abortion access and shutter abortion clinics.
Pamela Merritt, a “reproductive justice activist” andexecutive director of Medical Students for Choice, a nonprofit with a network of over 10,000 medical students, said the effort to exclude rape and incest from anti-abortion legislation will have a damning impact on women-African American women especially.
“For Black women, rape is incredibly common. I think one out of every three women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Black women have the complication of being highly surveilled; of not being believed; of often being in situations where we’re particularly vulnerable and we’re also reluctant to go to the police for a lot of reasons.”
Meritt added that extreme anti-abortion measures and the overturning of Roe has forced many voters to “confront the reality of restrictive abortion bans and policies.”
“We’re no longer debating the hypothetical consequences; voters are seeing them in everyday life. Republicans must now own destroying a 49-year-history of constitutional protection for bodily autonomy,” Merritt, said.
By many accounts, the GOP is already paying a political cost. The fizzle of the widely anticipated “red wave” of Republican victories in the 2022 midterms and repeated loses on anti-abortion referendums, even in traditionally red states such as Kansas, Ohio and Kentucky are strong signs of voter discontent. Ohio became the seventh state where voters decided to protect abortion access. Before Ohio, statewide initiatives in California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, and Vermont had either affirmed abortion access or turned back attempts to undermine the right.
In Missouri, SB 699-the “Abolition of Abortion in Missouri Act,” which would have repealed provisions related to the performance and regulation of abortions in the state, also died in committee during the 2022 legislative session.
Extreme measures like the Alabama Supreme Court’s recent decision declaring that frozen embryos have the same rights as a child in the womb-which has led to the shutdown of nearly half of the state’s vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics-has some Republicans worried about winning or keeping offices in upcoming elections.
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, rushed to the media claiming it’s possible to be “100% against abortion” except in cases of rape, incest, and life-threatening medical emergencies and “100% for IVF,” adding that he thinks “IVF ought to be protected in law as it is in my state.”
The problem for Hawley and other Republicans pushing extreme anti-abortion initiatives is that many voters don’t see or understand the nuances in their positions. Some simply attribute anything related to dismantling reproductive rights as a “GOP thing.”
Even though Hawley says he supports IVF, as the Guardian noted last month, the Alabama Supreme court decision echoed comments he wrote in an op/ed and arguments he made before the U. S. Supreme Court.
“In 2013, Hawley authored an opinion article in Missouri’s Springfield News-Leader that criticized a federal decision requiring employers to provide access to contraception through health insurance.” In his article, the Guardian added, “Hawley said the morning-after pill, ‘may induce an abortion by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg’-in effect, the same logic accepted by justices at the Alabama supreme court that led to shutdowns of IVF.”
Separately, the publication noted, how Hawley-while serving on the legal team arguing the “Hobby Lobby” case (2011-2015) before the US supreme court-argued that private companies should not be required to cover birth control methods that were ‘more like abortifacients’ because, they alleged, the contraception prevented an embryo from implanting in the uterus wall.”
Will Missouri follow Alabama’s lead? Rev. Dr. Love Holt, community engagement and storytelling specialist with Abortion Action Missouri, believes it will.
“St. Louis may be a melting pot, but the state is majority white,” she stressed. “Missouri has a habit of following suit of other egregious activities around the country, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they thought this is a good idea and adopted it 100 percent.”
Tori Schafer, spokesperson for Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, expressed similar sentiments in a recent press release:
“The overreach of extremist politicians in Alabama is exactly what we are fighting to end here in Missouri. Whether it is the cruel abortion ban already on the books in Missouri or the effort to limit access to IVF; what is clear is that anti-abortion extremists want to take away reproductive freedom from Missourians.”
Vicious anti-abortion referendums, measures to force victims of incest and rape to carry unwanted pregnancies to term and possible IVF restrictions are clearly turning many voters off. Yet, like cats chasing laser lights, Republican legislators, including those in Missouri, continue lining up behind extreme “pro-life,” clearly unpopular referendums.
Merritt believes Republicans are caught in a trap of their own making.
“The Republican Party really didn’t think they’d be able to strike down Roe until Trump came along,” she said. “They’ve now become Donald Trump’s party and are pandering to a juicy percent of Republican voters, trying to go for a reality they never thought they’d get. Well, they got it and now they have to deal with the consequences.”
LoveHolt wholeheartedly concurs with Biden and Meritt. She predicts that extreme Republican efforts to take away reproductive rights will backfire on the party.
“These attacks will stir women who are the most resilient beings on this planet. They will make themselves heard in November.”
Sylvester Brown Jr. is the Deaconess Foundation Community Advocacy Fellow.
