Highway to Heaven?
Hoo Boy! I just read a really good one in The Washington Post. There are communities in Texas enacting laws that make it illegal to use a given town’s roads to transport somebody to get an out-of-state abortion. If you’re giving your pregnant neighbor a lift to New Mexico, and you drive through one of these towns, a private citizen can sue you for violating the town’s ordinance.
According to the Post, “… Antiabortion advocates behind the measure are targeting regions along interstates and in areas with airports, with the goal of blocking off the main arteries out of Texas and keeping pregnant women hemmed within the confines of their antiabortion state. These provisions have already passed in two counties and two cities, creating legal risk for those traveling on major highways including Interstate 20 and Route 84, which head toward New Mexico, where abortion remains legal and new clinics have opened to accommodate Texas women.”
This undesirable action of aiding and abetting pregnant women is known as “abortion trafficking,” making it sound as if women are being forced, by the van load, to end their pregnancies.
I’m wondering how violators of these ordinances might be snagged. Roadblocks with instant pregnancy tests—and a follow-up test on the return trip? Registration of destination—to be verified with spyware or drone surveillance?
I used to think conservatives were the ones who abhorred government interference in people’s private lives. But I stand corrected. These folks seek absolute control over friends, neighbors, and anybody just passing through.
And how about those forward-looking states that banned classes in African American History? Clever. We wouldn’t want pregnant women or their aiders and abettors to get any ideas from lessons on the Underground Railroad.
Why not build a wall around the solid block of red southern states to keep all the women in? (Men can pass freely, as long as they aren’t transporting any women under 75.) Then all fetuses will be protected—at least through birth. After that, it’s a crapshoot.
If Texans successfully ban the use of their roads to halt abortion trafficking, here’s a taste of what’s coming down the pike elsewhere:
- At least one state (Tennessee) already bans out-of-state practitioners from providing gender affirming care to minors via Telehealth. A handful prohibit “conduct that aids or abets” provision of care. Establishing “trafficking laws” can’t be far behind.
- We’ll likely need roadblocks on all Arkansas roads crossing into Missouri. We don’t want any Arkansas potheads allowed in the land of legal marijuana. Why, some of these potheads might be teachers or librarians or have children of their own.
- What if I drive to Barnes & Noble with a teenager who buys a copy of My Shadow is Purple, the children’s book that recently got a Tennessee teacher fired? I’ve entered the realm of “banned book trafficking,” for sure.
- Why stop with roads? If my friend Sue brings her 16-year-old niece to my house, and this niece finds My Shadow is Purple on my bookshelf, Sue and I are going to the slammer.
Either these prohibitions will eventually come to pass in the red communist conservative states, or the “abortion trafficking” ordinances have absolutely nothing to do with protecting the innocent—they’re merely about controlling women and their sympathizers. Either route is an expressway from democracy to fascism—which apparently looks like heaven to some folks.