The Road To Gilead, Con't

Republicans are going to try to put women in jail for abortions, and since the FDA made abortion medication over the counter last month, the GOP is making it clear the next steps are to treat that medication as illegal drugs and prosecute pharmacies, doctors, and women for sale and use.

Alabama’s attorney general became the most prominent Republican official yet to suggest that pregnant women could be prosecuted for taking abortion pills, saying in recent days that a state ban targeting those who facilitate abortions does not preclude the state from seeking to penalize women under other existing laws.

The comment reflects a simmering divide within the antiabortion movement, which has long sought to treat women seeking abortions as “victims” and not as targets for punishment.

In the wake of the June Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, movement leaders promised that women had nothing to fear — even as Republican leaders in more than a dozen states in the South and Midwest moved aggressively to enact strict abortion bans, though almost always targeting providers rather than patients.

Alabama’s near-total ban, which took effect soon after the Supreme Court ruling, exempts abortion seekers from prosecution, including penalties only for those who help people obtain abortions. In his statement, Attorney General Steve Marshall’s office suggests that pregnant women could still be prosecuted under a separate 2006 state law that has been used to punish women for drug consumption during pregnancy.

The abortion ban “does not provide an across-the-board exemption from all criminal laws, including the chemical-endangerment law — which the Alabama Supreme Court has affirmed and reaffirmed protects unborn children,” Marshall’s office said in a statement to The Washington Post on Wednesday. It was first reported Saturday by 1819 News.

Underscoring the tensions surrounding the issue, a spokesman for Marshall issued a subsequent statement in response to The Post that appeared to back away from endorsing the prosecution of abortion seekers. “The Attorney General’s beef is with illegal providers, not women,” said Cameron Mixon, Marshall’s deputy communications director, in response to a request to interview Marshall.

Marshall’s statement comes at a moment of turmoil for the antiabortion movement, with many Republicans still reeling from a 2022 midterm election where voters turned out in droves to support abortion rights a few months after the high court’s ruling. As Congress and state legislatures convene for the new year, some lawmakers are urging caution on the abortion issue, while others press for further restrictions.

The rise of abortion pills has been a particular sore point for many antiabortion advocates, frustrated that the fall of Roe has not succeeded in halting abortions in states where the procedure is banned. Galvanized by a recent decision by the Food and Drug Administration to allow retail pharmacies to dispense abortion pills in states where abortion is legal, as well as an emerging network distributing abortion pills illegally, some hard-line Republicans are seeking ways to further crack down on the procedure.

 

This is all being done to terrorize anyone who might get pregnant, of course. Gen Z and Millennials are swinging hard towards the Democratic Party, especially women, and they have to be punished for it. Eventually, a state like Alabama will put women in jail for this, the victim charged will almost certainly be Black, Hispanic or Native, and the "solution" will be a national abortion ban making these drugs illegal in the US.

It has to be fought at every turn.