It looks like the Southern states are flexing their machismo muscles by passing harsh laws criminalizing abortion in anticipation of finally overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision. The Republican Party has happily accepted votes while promising to do this for three or four decades. Donald Trump no doubt gained many votes in 2016 by vowing to appoint anti-abortion judges to the Supreme Court, which he was able to do twice thanks to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and his gang of thieves in the U.S. Senate.
The U.S. Constitution is civil law based clearly on its citizens being "born" (or naturalized) in the U.S., for purposes of enumeration, taxation and representation. Stillbirths, abortions and miscarriages do not affect the census count, and no taxpayer gains an added dependent tax exemption or deduction until there is a viable birth. In 1973 the Supreme Court, citing the 9th and 14th Amendments, awarded the right of choice to full-grown female citizens in preference to giving any blessings of citizenship to nickel-sized embryos.
To overturn Roe v. Wade the Trump Supreme Court would have to seriously distort the Constitution or borrow some articles of faith from another outside creed. The beliefs regarding the "unborn," which are most likely to influence the court, have been imported from the Vatican. In the 1860s, Pope Pius IX proclaimed without any scriptural evidence that human ensoulment, or spiritual completion, takes place at—and only at—the moment of conception. After this change of church law, Roman Catholic clergymen in the United States spent the remainder of the 19th century salvaging souls of the "unborn" by pushing for enactment of state anti-abortion laws, and later opposing many modern forms of birth control and in vitro practices.
In the 1960s, American women had achieved sufficient legal standing to challenge the old anti-abortion laws, and by 1973, even before Roe v. Wade, a dozen states had passed laws allowing abortion on demand. The latest anti-abortion laws passed in Alabama and other southern states are a cowardly slap in the face to modern American women's legal standing as well as the dedicated work of women's health care providers.
In my opinion, the persistent right-wing efforts to criminalize abortion are a reactionary, male chauvinist attempt to quash the advancement of women and to force them back toward a status of "barefoot and pregnant" and too fearful to complain.
