The Underground War about Abortion


I've always thought abortion was more like prohibition than like any other religious/political experience we have had in our country. Even though there was some enthusiastic enforcement of prohibition, whiskey stills, bathtub gin and priests selling wine to the faithful made prohibition unsustainable. Much of anti abortion will be harder to control than prohibition.

President Biden has not made public his rules for where, when and how abortion medicines, pills that cause abortions, can by sold. The betting is he will allow internet access to telemedicine and pills to women everywhere. This would mean women in an anti abortion state could find a doctor in another state, or even in another country, who would sell the pills and monitor their use through telemedicine. Anti abortion groups in states are scrambling to put laws in place preventing this. What Biden will ultimately do and how successful states will be in limiting pill abortions we will find out eventually. 

Polls show Biden remains very popular even as his liberal views on abortion are becoming known. Those who backed Trump solely over his anti abortion judges are no doubt disappointed that anti abortion is not as popular a political issue as they had thought. 

The war against and for abortion rights seems to be fought largely "underground." Anti abortion groups are pulling out all the stops in states and cities trying to not have medical abortions available. Abortion rights groups are developing strategies to make abortion pills and telemedicine available even in places where it might be illegal. 

Beside prohibition, the success or lack of success of another model is helpful to review. It is the so called "war on drugs." Trillions of dollars have been spent and many lives lost trying to stop illegal drugs from entering the U.S. Universally, it has been determined a failure. Now, as we know, legalization of some of those formerly demonized drugs like marijuana are well under way. It doesn't seem unreasonable to predict the same path for abortion drugs.


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