After Roe: Seeing Red

Back to the Fight for Legal, Accessible Abortion: We Can Win More Than the Narrow Rights Granted by Roe

By Alex Moni-Sauri

At the Seattle protest on the day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the air was heavy with shock, despair, and anger directed sharply toward SCOTUS and the Democratic Party. Organized by the Reproductive Justice Coalition, (of which Seattle DSA is a part), there was a strong showing of groups from the radical left and widespread interest in socialist ideas. Drawing around 4,000 people at its peak, the tone of the rally was much more markedly radical than usual for a US public protest – and from all reports across the country, Seattle was no exception.

This decision was a massive overreach on the part of the ultra-conservatives on the Supreme Court. Nearly 70 percent of people in the US support abortion in some form, and 80 percent told Gallup they were “more likely to vote for a Democrat who favors leaving abortion decisions up to pregnant people and their doctors.” The discrepancy between the court’s decisions and the will of the people is on one hand not surprising, since the Supreme Court is an undemocratic institution that has never represented the interests of oppressed and working-class people. But the flagrancy – in direct opposition to the majority, in the third year of a pandemic, with severely restricted access to healthcare, dwindling medical infrastructure, climbing rates of inflation, and a deepening economic crisis with no relief in sight – seemed to be an astonishing miscalculation of how much misery the US population is willing to bear.

Handing down a brutal, unpopular ruling could lead to the rise of powerful movements from below.

Handing down a brutal, unpopular ruling amid compounding crises already risks triggering a level of despair and turmoil that could lead to the rise of powerful movements from below. In the 1960s and ’70s, the ruling class was eager to accommodate some of the movement’s demands – like granting limited abortion rights via Roe v. Wade – out of fear that the activism of the feminist, labor, and civil rights movements of the time would otherwise radicalize working-class people much further. At the time, the ruling class recognized that continuing to deny such basic rights was not in the interest of the smooth functioning of the state; the years ahead are likely to pose a similar question.

The decision to overturn Roe came down with full Democratic control of both the White House and Congress, discrediting not just the Supreme Court but the Democratic Party for a much wider layer of people than before. The role of the Democratic Party is further exposed in its response to the ruling, acting as a safety valve against pressures from below as it tries to channel the energy and demands for fundamental change into the narrow confines of a call to vote, again, for the Democrats.

How Did We Get Here?

Some on the socialist left attempt to find the logic behind this overreach in rigid economic considerations, such as the idea that banning abortion is driven by capitalism’s need for expendable workers. This paints the capitalist class as a cohesive, well-oiled machine, with a rationally formulated agenda for social policy. Reality is much more chaotic.

The vicious war against bodily autonomy for women and pregnant people is not rooted in a simple economic interest of the capitalists, but in reactionary, misogynistic ideas stoked up by a system which rules by division. The expression of these ideas in far-right, ultra-conservative forces (like the Christian right or Trumpism) comes from the need to counter the unifying force of our resistance. This has little to do with what the ruling class itself actually believes, or what the direct interest of profits dictate. It’s a symptom of capitalism itself, which cannot exist without oppression, without racism, without sexism, without a war against women and gender non-conforming people.

Driven by divide-and-rule tactics, the ruling class often finances, supports, and even builds reactionary ideas and movements (through corporate mass media, for example). But there’s a degree of unpredictability inherent to this strategy, as ideas and movements develop dynamics which can grow beyond the needs and control of the ruling class – as we see now with the rise of a populist far right.

The decision to overturn Roe, against the will of the majority and in a time of extreme precariousness, is evidence not of an ascendant, unified agenda of the capitalist class, but the heightened state of its internal conflict and the instability of its rule.

This does not at all diminish the threat of escalating right-wing attacks on our most fundamental rights. On the contrary. Far-right activists will only be fueled by raging culture wars, and further legislative attacks on our reproductive rights and beyond may be pushed through the courts while Congress and Biden appear so immobilized. For the left, our immediate task is to work out a coherent strategy for fighting back.

Mutual Aid

On the relief front, there are efforts to organize mutual aid networks to provide safe access to abortion by helping women in trigger-ban states travel across state lines and by making other forms of abortion (like the so called “abortion pill,” which consists of Mifepristone and Misoprostol) available through the mail. Emergency action in this vein will be needed to mitigate some of the inevitable harm that will come to abortion seekers and providers, but it’s an extremely limited and temporary solution without an organized political strategy.

The threat of legal and physical retaliation toward people who assist in illegal abortion means that even the most well-organized mutual aid networks will be very fragile and vulnerable to disruption. The idea that people will be able to break the law in a unified and consistent enough way so as to make it unenforceable is not reliable either; without a political movement of our own to offer direction and protection for such forms of action, the risk to individuals and their families will simply be too great.

The Democrats

It’s obvious that the Democrats in Congress will not act on their own in any meaningful way. We hold no illusions in their benevolence or ability to act on behalf of working people, and we know that it’s not plain ineptitude that prevents them from taking action – it’s a broken political strategy. The Democrats are the party of liberalism, of rules, of measured adherence to norms and reverence for state institutions. Even (and maybe especially) amidst such broad disillusionment in the function of our democracy, the role of the Democrats will be to keep up the act, to try to maintain the illusion of a solid structure instead of a vanishing myth.

The bombardment of campaigning and fundraising blasts from the Democrats, calling on us daily to vote harder and donate more, make clear that they’re banking on public outrage around Roe to win seats in the fall. Public outrage will certainly grow with the inevitable tragedies, deaths, and imprisonment to come as a result of this decision. But it’s a toothless strategy, even for the Democrats, as the wave of outrage and disillusionment may result in declining support in November. With full control of the White House and Congress, the total inaction on the part of the Democrats to protect abortion rights damages the likelihood of voters turning out for a powerless “lesser evil.”

Without a political party of working people as a viable alternative, it could also foreseeably lead to bolstered support for Republican and far-right alternatives, as we saw with the election of Trump. The two parties have long relied on the “good cop/bad cop” routine, and are unable to abandon it, even as the wheels come off the wagon.

This doesn’t mean, however, that the Democrats and Congress are not susceptible to public pressure. In fact, the instability and weakness on display is a sign that they very much are. Again, a situation in which rogue far-right forces push massively unpopular rulings through an immobilized administration is not at all favorable to capitalist interests, if challenged by a mobilized, radicalizing movement from below. Under conditions of pressure from below, the contradictions within the capitalist class will be further exposed – and the visibility of such internal conflict is a danger to its own ability to rule.

Women’s March Calls for “Weekend of Action” October 7 to 9

At the protests in June, Seattle DSA and others called on Planned Parenthood, the Women’s March, Sanders, AOC, and labor to organize for a Million Person March on Washington, DC, to fight for our reproductive rights and to prepare for a mass feminist strike.

In July, the Women’s March organized a number of protests in DC, and Planned Parenthood took some action toward organizing a feminist strike.

The Women’s March is now calling for a “Weekend of Action” on October 7 to 9, in DC and many more cities – including a March on Washington on October 8. This is a welcome rallying cry, and one that DSA, Sanders, the Squad, and Planned Parenthood should throw their full weight behind to turn this weekend of action into an uproar.

With a dynamic movement which threatens to go far beyond the limited rights granted by Roe – demanding free health care for all; Medicare for All; unapologetic, accessible abortion across the US; free childcare and education; jobs and social security; affordable housing; and more – we can force Democrats (and even “pro-choice” Republicans like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski) to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act and codify abortion rights for all states, including those which have successfully undermined abortion access for poor and marginalized people over the last decades.

Is Abortion Winnable in the Short Term?

Many forces on the socialist left correctly identify the need to build and sustain mass resistance, to fight against the undemocratic rule of the Supreme Court, and to form a political movement of working people to propel us toward a rupture with capitalism. There is no doubt that any reforms or protections won under capitalism are under constant threat of erosion, and the fight for our future depends on our ability to organize locally, nationally, and internationally to break capitalist power.

Unfortunately, this message is often paired with a dismissal of engaging in short-term battles, or in electoral battles at all, which limits both the tools we have at our disposal and our ability to bring broader layers of people into struggle.

In a recent editorial for the Tempest Collective (tempestmag.org/2022/07/after-roe/), Natalia Tylim writes,

We need to reject any illusions of a short-term fix. The starting point needs to be overturning the existing constitutional order, like they did in Chile, and like the Civil Rights, Abolitionist, and Suffrage movements in this country did in previous centuries… all tactics have to be weighed against the illusion that there is a short-term, institutional fix.

When we confront the far right outside clinics, when we march, when we call for the delegitimization of the courts and the political system itself, we will hear forces tell us that our demands are not realistic and that they are doing more harm than good.

This formulation pits our structural, medium- and long-term demands against the immediate need to fight for protection of our bodily autonomy, and undermines our ability to do so. It pits the fight for reforms (like winning back abortion rights through the Women’s Healthcare Protection Act) against the fundamental change needed to secure and dramatically expand the rights we’ve already won.

Socialists must use every tool available to us and pair the consistent, full-throated call for a break with capitalism with the need to fight for every winnable reform that can improve the lives of working people. This does not mean seeding illusions in the viability of state institutions, nor does it mean constraining the scope of our demands. In order to organize a truly mass movement, on a scale that could contest and ultimately break the power of the capitalist class, socialists must advocate for fighting tactics that are concrete and achievable in the present moment.

So, what is achievable? We believe that we can build a movement here and now that will force the ruling class and its representatives in both parties, as well as in the state apparatus and the Supreme Court, to act. They will act to contain our movement, not out of agreement, benevolence, or allegiance to democracy. But it would provide immediate relief to countless people in need of safe access to abortion, and it would radicalize many more to witness, again, the real power we build through our movements.

By contrast, to call for the disbandment of the Supreme Court or the overturning of the Constitution as a starting point feels out of reach to a majority of people, on the socialist left and beyond – and for good reason, given the current weakness of the left and the lack of a political party to express our demands or direct working-class power. If our message is simply that the system is broken and we need a new one, lacking a concrete, viable strategy to bridge the gap, it will only deepen the sense of despair and disempowerment on the left, and fail to spread socialist ideas among working people who aren’t yet convinced of the need for class struggle. Our task is to draw people into mass movements and build our confidence and strength through the experience of collective organizing.

The Role of Socialists

Of the left progressives in Congress, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has been the most vocal with her ideas for possible action. Her proposals to pack the courts, curtail judicial review, build clinics on federal land, and repeal the Hyde Amendment are all options that could help mitigate the severity of the crisis. They’re all good demands – the question is: How can we win them?

AOC seems to rely on the hope that somehow the Democrats will be willing to facilitate these proposals, and all we have to do is get them on the desk.

AOC’s approach is ineffective not because it places demands on the Democrats in Congress, but because it fails to establish any lever of public pressure to back them up. Simply calling for measures that legislative institutions could or should take up, without also linking those demands to a clear anti-capitalist message and calling for organization and mobilization from below, does continue to sow illusions in the idea of an “institutional fix,” and does nothing to build the independent class movement we need.

We don’t make demands on state institutions because we believe that they function in the interests of the people, and we don’t make hollow, cynical demands just to prove our case. We fight for demands we have a shot at winning, and which could improve and protect our lives as working-class people. The corruption and contradiction inherent to capitalist rule will expose itself in the course of our struggle, and it is through this experience that the need for class solidarity is clarified and from which we can build a truly mass political movement.

We have an opportunity now to contribute to building a new feminist movement. In DSA, we should prioritize supporting the call of the Women’s March for a Weekend of Action in October, hold public meetings to discuss demands and strategy, and activate membership around this target. DSA and others should focus especially on building for the March on Washington on October 8, which has potential to be the most visible, massive, and historic public protest against the decision to overturn Roe. We can contribute a strong socialist feminist vision to the growing movement, and orient our fighting strategy toward the goal of abolishing capitalism.

We should call on Sanders, AOC and other DSA members in Congress, as well as Planned Parenthood and labor, to take up the call for protest in the fall, and fight to push back against this overreach. We will need to link our fight for reproductive rights with other socialist forces, with the labor movement, with the fight for Black lives, and beyond. We’ll need to build toward mass feminist strikes, workplace strikes, and the creation of an independent political party. The anger and disillusionment with our political system is potent, and rising – we have a chance now to build something new.