What's worse is to imagine that in 2040 our Nation's judiciary and legislature will have become even more powerlessly subject to Christian Supremacy.
Separation of church and state is what this nation was built on. Do the Evangelical Lobbyists and Politicians need to be reminded?
40
@Krantz Do they need to be reminded? They know...they know what they are doing...they don’t care. They are people who want to tell you how to live your life, and they will say and do anything to make that happen.
2
If we consider that according to the New Testamemt the Virgin Mary had four children is it that having more children but retaining one's virginity is some sort of cosmic plan by whomever controls all this stuff wants humans to keep coming no matter what conditions they are forced to face. One should consider such before conception. `
This could indeed be the future and Planned Parenthood needs to plan for it Now.
I'm sure many of us will support abortion for all with donations, and some of the women may have money and help tourism.
No matter what, good will prevail in this case.
With the Republican Party, all absurdities are possible.
2
This country as currently constituted will not exist in 2040 - the Blue states will be gone.
1
Whatever the unlikelihood of this scenario, I perceive a larger truth about our "United" States, that of "states rights" run amok such that each state is essentially its own little republic offering wildly different circumstances and expected outcomes. Some states will be progressive, some will be oppressive. Some will offer expanded Medicaid access while others will overpolice citizen crime and underpolice corporate crime. I wouldn't want to be a woman in AL, a worker in NC or a black person living under the thumb of any southern sheriff. Come to think of it, our motley federation of 1st and 3rd world republics and anything in between is already here.
3
@Marcy "Some states will be progressive, some will be oppressive. "
What will not change is that the progressive states, with their educated, high-earning, innovative populations, will continue to be expected to fund the oppressive states.
6
This is not a good prediction. California, New Jersey, Connecticut, etc. will never ban abortion. And a law that prosecuted people who went out-of-state to get an abortion would likely be deemed unconstitutional as a restriction of the constitutional right to interstate travel. This piece is a fantasy meant to drum up outrage.
1
@Jake
Love when uninformed men tell us to calm down. Just love it.
Anyways.
1) you wrongfully assume that all women have the resources to travel out of their awful states;
2) you wrongfully assume that states won't investigate pregnancies/miscarriages/abortions even if they can't prosecute, which is bad enough;
3) you wrongfully assume that states won't try to outlaw it (see, Georgia's bill). Sure, the rule could be enjoined while the constitutionality is litigated, but I personally do not like to stake my reproductive rights on "well it could be enjoined," fingers crossed!
7
@Jake
"And a law that prosecuted people who went out-of-state to get an abortion would likely be deemed unconstitutional as a restriction of the constitutional right to interstate travel."
Georgia's law attempts to get around that by classifying the PLANNING for an out-of-state trip for an abortion (not the out-of-state abortion itself) as conspiracy to commit murder.
4
I double-checked a couple of polling sites that confirmed that a majority of Americans support legal abortions, this support has not declined in recent years, and younger people have more liberal views on the issue than the current generation. One would have to imagine a pretty heavy-handed legislature or court to impose abortion restrictions against the will of the majority of Americans. I don't see how this would not lead to backlash, and indeed I envision that we will start to see backlash against a whole slew of conservative policies anyway once younger voters come more on line.
I just don't see a scenario where the situation described here could come to pass.
1
@Marc
"One would have to imagine a pretty heavy-handed legislature or court to impose abortion restrictions against the will of the majority of Americans. "
Do you think that the will of the majority means much these days? Polls consistently show 90% approval for strengthening gun sale background checks, but nothing happens. Heavy gerrymandering, as in NC, renders majority opinion moot.
4
Hopefully by then all the patriarchs will have died off and science will have advanced to the point that pregnancy will be a true choice. Perhaps some other final word on the interpretation of law will be handled by a group other than the "Supreme" Court!
In some ways, 2040 is already here. Georgia's extremist anti-abortion law, HB 481, specifies that a Georgia resident who travels elsewhere for the purpose of an abortion can be charged with conspiracy to commit murder (because the planning for the trip occurred in Georgia). Anyone who helps her plan a trip to get an out-of-state abortion or transports her to the clinic (say, a friend or relative who drives her) may also be charged with conspiracy.
Prosecutors may interrogate women who miscarry to determine if they are at fault (including using drugs that terminate a pregnancy). If a prosecutor finds such evidence, the woman can be charged with murder, which in Georgia carries a penalty of life imprisonment or death.
Georgia is often held up as an example of the "new South." Can you imagine the laws that the states still in the "old South" would pass?
5
Pretty picture, isn't it? It can happen...or we can actively move to change this country's sorry laws based on personal prejudices of a minority of the electorate. We do nothing, things happen, bad things. I don't feel that should abortion by banned completely that this will stand for more than a dozen years or so. After 50 years of (mostly) access to women's services of an utmost intimate nature, the Nation will not stand for it. The conservatives cannot push the toothpaste back into the tube. Nonetheless, thousands of innocent women will suffer the consequences. Bad history, if you ask me.
3
The premise of Ms. Ferriss' scenario is that babies are just mouths to feed and bodies to keep warm. In fact, babies are minds yearning for creativity and hearts bursting with love. These new minds and hearts will be a gift to the human community offering life enhancing possibilities. Among these gifts will be means of birth control acceptable to all, creative means of climate control enriching our environment, etc. Lets not frustrate these gifts by considering children a curse.
8
@Rhett Segall What you say is true of babies, at least the babies of people with the resources to raise them.
However, it is manifestly UNtrue about embryos and fetuses.
By the way, an unwanted child is indeed a curse. Ask any girl or woman who has known the incredible desperation created by a pregnancy that she knows will turn her life inside out and upside down if she is forced to continue to term.
That is why, before Roe v Wade, we risked *death* to obtain an abortion.
63
@Rhett Segall, have you considered that humankind will miss out on important "life enhancing possibilities", if the gifts that women would have brought to the table are squelched and snuffed out by those who consider autonomous women a curse? Relegating women to the status of chattel livestock, to labor solely in service of "new minds and hearts", is unspeakably cruel to those women who are already born.
The space in which creativity and love grows is one in which willing parents willingly gestate and rear wanted children. Creativity and love can only wither and die in a radical theocratic Giladian dystopia, as Margaret Atwood has so presciently shown us.
58
@Rhett Segall
A clump of cells, even a larger clump we call a fetus, is not babies.
And then, there's the overarching ethics and morality of girls and women having the right to their own bodies + determining their own destiny. As. Do. Males.
Don't agree. USE CONDOMS.
48
It's 2019. Thanks to the internet, abortion is now available to anyone, anywhere due to the ease with which one can buy mifepristone and misoprostol online. Proving that the loss of the child is due to abortion pills and not a natural miscarriage is close to impossible, impeding the prosecution of women who choose this route. Why would this be any harder in 2040?
17
@Jonathan
The over the counter and mail order morning after pill is not the same as the abortion pills, which still require a prescription and are a timed cocktail.
9
@Jonathan This sounds hopeful, but is it possible that these self administered drugs will be made illegal?
7
@WHM
The morning after pill - Plan B - only stops implantation up to 72 hours. It is not an abortion. It does not require a prescription and can be bought at the drug store. However, it is not 100% effective.
Once there is implantation days and weeks in, the only remedy is some form of abortion. The medication abortion, the so-called abortion pill (RU-486) is actually 2 pills taken days apart and it affects the hormones to stop the pregnancy from advancing. Widely used in Europe for decades, it's only available in the U.S. by prescription.
15
My guess is that under this scenario, by 2040 at least California would have left the Union... and Canada, overwhelmed by immigration from the United States, closed its border and built their own wall to keep out their former neighbors from the south.
192
@The View From Downriver California, Oregon, and Washington broke from the union in 2028, forming the Pacific States of America. Without the huge tax revenue CA provides, middle America went into a deep recession as government services were cut and thousands of federal workers were laid off to save costs. Unfortunately, the newly formed PSA is having trouble quashing outbreaks of violence from white supremacist groups on their eastern regions, and the new flood of refugees seeking economic opportunity (and reproductive health services) has turned the area around Lake Tahoe into the world's largest refugee camp. All the while, PSA officials are debating the merits of setting up a border wall along the CA-NV border at Lake Tahoe to handle the refugee crisis, something environmentalists across the entire region are adamantly against.
25
@Allen
And MN would become the 11th Canadian Province. We'd be called Baja Canada.
10
If this nightmare scenario were to come to pass, Europe might have a whole new refugee crisis on its hands -American women seeking political asylum.
73
This is pretty weak argumentation. I sometimes travel to another state (Nevada) to do something that is unlawful in my own state (California). California is not empowered to prevent me from traveling there nor may it prosecute me upon my return for engaging in lawful casino gambling in Nevada. The same would be true of abortion in a post Roe world. The NYT is just running scare articles here.
4
@Rex Nemorensis
You should read the text of Georgia’s law more closely. You should also consider how awful it will be for women whose miscarriages are investigated so the state can determine whether and where the abortion took place. You should also consider than many women won’t have the means to travel out of state. Especially if they live in a red state in a sea of red states.
8
You have great imagination, seeing what might happen in some other multiverse, 21 years from now...
But you sound like a glass is one-third empty sort of person...
See, here's what's really going to happen right here in this one, in 2020...
Someone's going to configure and program a surgical robot to perform this procedure so quickly, and so precisely, and so minimally invasively, the patient will walk in, sit down and back – and get up and walk out, 90 seconds later...
Even though I'm a glass is two-thirds full sort of person – am resigned to the notion that this is one more STEM opportunity space where China will take the lead, and we'll argue about whose fault was that...
Because the far bigger market around this sort of robotic will be for IVF implantation...
Yes – that is the sound of your colleagues running out of the room and down to the patent office...
Right now, in 2019...
All we may need is love – but without lust and greed, we wouldn’t be here in the first place...
PS
You are on the side of the angels...
But they can never tell, about me – especially after posts like this...
1
This is silly. In 2040, a scant 21 years away, we're going to have much more life and death issues to deal with - like where are we going to move thousands and thousands of Americans from the swamped coastal areas inland and how do we do it? Meanwhile, the world is burning and drowning, simultaneously, depending on what part of it you are in at any particularly moment. Those people will be casting their hungry eyes upon the North American continent as a relatively safer place to be than where they are now. How are we going to keep billions out who want to survive just like we do here? Canada and the United States will have to band together in order to have even a slim chance of survival against hungry and thirsty hordes. Those who think this isn't going to happen are in Trump la la land. Abortions - illegal or not - will continue no matter what, and will likely increase as the Fascists crack down harder and harder on the rights and lives of all females everywhere. Despite the "Handmaid's Tale" ethos of today's males, we have ways of pushing back, and refusing pregnancy is one of them.
2
Those of us old enough to remember the 'good old days' when abortion was illegal and contraception problematic, also remember what life was like for huge families. When I first saw 'The Waltons' on television, I could not believe how rich the Walton family was.
I grew up in Catholic Quebec. There's a reason why some traditional Quebec recipes include celery leaves.
Poverty.
8
As the religious right increasing takes control of our government, abortion will be but one aspect of life that will change. In the name of religion, poverty will grow and constricted personal freedoms, as well as, discrimination in the name of "religious freedom" will be the law of the land. The Johnson Amendment (1954) was meant to keep religion out of government... unfortunately, the IRS doesn't really 't enforce it.
7
To the author:
I'm going to suggest to you that if this actually comes to pass, unwanted children are going to be the least of our issues. This will be turn from a Democratic Republic to a Theocracy.
And to be quite frank, I don't think educated women with careers are going to stand for it. Any of it.
5
We will be lucky if our country is still standing in 2040. God forbid, if the liberal Democrats ever get into power we are doomed. We should be very afraid.
6
Well played by this commenter - brilliant satire.
4
By 2040, climate change will be so extreme that overpopulation will be the problem that must be stopped, and nobody will be stopping abortion.
5
And that's a bad thing?
When did California outlaw abortion in this scenario?
Dan Kravitz
7
The photo included with the article looks very much like a sonogram. I wonder if this was deliberate. All that was missing was the baby.
1
This is not a baby - babies are born.
8
Every abortion a tragedy - just like 7,7 billion human beings on Earth and counting as our numbers explode towards manifold uncertain consequences for all life in the not so distant future.
3
I have often wondered if the Supreme court had not forced abortion on the states if we would not have been better off in the long run. More states might have gradually relaxed their own laws to relieve the carnage being done to unwed mothers trying do it yourself abortion. Public opinion would have had a chance to evolve instead of the instant polarization such a radical decision set in motion. The modern religious right was spawned by Roe v Wade. Catholics were once a major constituency of the Democrats but suddenly deserted the party of the Kennedy's. No one will ever know for sure but it was a real shock to many conservative folks who were already reeling from the '60s and it presented a rallying point for them.
6
@Wayne
The Supreme Court didn't "force" abortion on ANYONE. SCotUS responded to a horrifying human rights and medical disaster unfolding before their eyes.
WOMEN. WERE. DYING.
They had been dying for decades. Doctors. Women. Husbands. Educators. EVERYONE. Spoke forcefully for the desperate need to do away with the antediluvian laws which prohibited reproductive rights and the Supreme Court *responded.*
Public opinion HAD evolved. What had not evolved were the laws which were KILLING and criminalizing American women.
5
No, Lucy the future of abortion is a choice. What you need to do is use your voice and platform to explain to anti-abortion Christians like me, that if we give control of abortion to the government, what is anti-abortion legislation today is not only pro abortion, but DEMAND abortion legislation tomorrow. Christian legislators once enacted laws requiring businesses and places of entertainment be closed on Sunday in order to allow Christians to attend worship. They gave the government control. Today Sunday is the busiest shopping day of the week. Before 1920, marriage took place in a religious setting and was between a man, a women and God. Then Christians gave control of marriage to the government. Today marriage is a temporary legal contract between any two people regardless of sex. If government is given control of abortion, what would then not be an option, may well in the future become a demand. Once the 'no new taxes' constituency realizes that the babies now aborted, many with severe medical disabilities, or parents unable to provide for them, will cost them billions of dollars a year they will quickly call for mandatory abortion for any pregnant women on public assistance or carrying a child with such severe physical problems that will require public support. Those who don't learn from their history are doomed to repeat it.
4
In 2040 there will be virtually no need for abortion. Government and science will insure that every female who reaches puberty will be immunized against pregnancy. When she is sufficiently responsible and on her request, she will be issued the antidote without charge. Brave New World.
3
This is the sad reality of where our nation is headed in terms of abortion. A basic human right to privacy that is being stripped beneath our feet by people who have nothing better to do than try to control other people's private lives. I hope that this is never an actual piece that we will see published in the Times.
23
What about the thriving black market for abortion inducing drugs? Making recreational drugs illegal hasn't stopped them from being widely available. Could drive up the price....but maybe not, if big pharma can't control production, because it's so lucrative. Poor quality control will result, but early term abortion will still be available.
4
Ms. Ferriss fails to mention that in 2030, the Supreme Court overturns Griswold v. Connecticut on the ground that it violates state rights. Promptly, 30 states allowed all birth control for unmarried people, leading to a puzzling (to them) skyrocketing of out-of-wedlock births.
3
I thought Mifepristone and Misoprostol were the waive of the future. Anyway, by 2040, won’t there be even better abortion pills? So just like illegal drugs, insider trading and political corruption, abortion will be illegal but very easy and common. Abortion has been around for thousands of years. Laws didn’t stop it before, and laws won’t stop it in the future.
I’m definitely pro choice. If we’re going to lose the legal battle, let’s invest in the science battle. Pills are easy to smuggle and distribute. If the religious zealots make abortion illegal, we’ll just go around them.
12
It is legal almost everywhere. Except in the United States.
4
"Several times, in states where abortion is illegal, I have testified in cases where a hidden pregnancy resulted in a newborn abandoned in an alley."
Of course, in a civilized society, the child would have been deliberately dismembered in the womb before birth, with the body parts incinerated as medical waste or perhaps sold for medical research.
4
@James you are absolutely right. In a civilized society, the fetus would have been removed from the womb of the woman who does not want a child, thus freeing her to get an education, a job or do whatever else she wants. The fetal tissues would have been used for life-saving medical research. Totally agree with you except for one point: the use of the word “child” to refer to a non-sentient clump of developing cells is inaccurate. Please use “embryo” or “fetus” instead.
10
@Mor - that clump of cells is still “non-sentient” in the moments following birth. Infants are indistinguishable from an 8 month old “clump of cells” in the womb. It’s a living human being from the moment of conception on a seamless continuum of development through old age. I hope you can join me in valuing and protecting all human life, women and children, no matter how weak or dependent they may be.
1
@James not true, actually: the brain undergoes a significant rewiring after birth. But what is your point: that infanticide should be legal? It was in many cultures, including Ancient Greece and Rome, but I don’t think we should go back there. Legal personhood begins at birth. Human life in the sense of bare biological existence is no more valuable than animal life. And as a woman, I resent the implication that I am somehow “weaker” or require more protection than a man.
5
Rewind to 2016. Where were all these women voters?
This is just plain silly.
But if there were no such articles, abortion activists would have nothing to do.
3
Some version of this scenario will happen. The Roberts court will overturn Roe v Wade.
So let's take a look at who is responsible here. Bernie Bros, this is on you. After all, ten percent of you voted for Trump. https://www.npr.org/2017/08/24/545812242/1-in-10-sanders-primary-voters-ended-up-supporting-trump-survey-finds Many others voted third party. Others just stayed home.
Of course, you couldn't find it in your "conscience" to vote for Hillary. Well, what about the young women who will now be forced to bear their rapists' babies? We will soon live in a sick society that will require women to go through this horrific experience.
Or how about the young girls who will now be forced to carry their father's or uncle's babies to term? Will any of these women be on your "conscience" now? Many will be victims of sexual assault, and will be forced to go through with the pregnancy.
But you didn't care about any of those women, did you? Those of you who didn't vote for Hillary knew you had no skin in the game. As men, your lives would be virtually unchanged under a Trump presidency.
And now because of you, women will bleed to death in back alley abortions, as they did fifty years ago when I was a young adult.
So where will your precious "conscience" be, every time you read accounts of women forced to bear their rapists' babies? Because the women in your families will want to know why their lives meant so little to you.
159
@Nicholas Rush If Hilary had campaigned in the rust belt, she probably would have won. If she had tailored her message to the electorate, rather than treating the election like a coronation, she probably would have won.
"Bernie bros" don't exist, they're a slur created by the Clinton campaign. They even tried the same thing in 2008 with "Obama boys". That's how intellectually bankrupt Hilary is.
And by the way, Bernie supporters voted for Hilary more reliably than Clinton supporters voted for Obama in 2008.
43
@Nicholas Rush
I have just 2 words for the men of this country:
PATERNITY SUIT!
No more, "He said, she said." Just a quick swipe with a Q-tip inside the mouth and ta-da, the DNA results are known!
Republican men don't like birth control or abortion?
Well, welcome back to the 50's and 60's!
I understand that there is a HUGE community of FEMALE attorneys who will be happy as all get-out to whisk those Boyz off to the courtroom!
Haul out your checkbooks, Incels!
69
I don't think scapegoating people who could be your allies, especially considering that they have more information now than they did then, is a smart or event reasonable position.
No, it's not Comey, the FSB, IRA, Cambridge Analytica, social media platforms, and a DNC playing clear favorites or the millions of republican votes that are responsible, but this fraction of a faction that you could have as allies that you must despise.
Are you really so sure about that?
22
Let's be clear about the controversy.
It's not abortion vs. choice, it's forced pregnancy and parenthood vs. choice.
23
This is the pro-choice version of the "slippery slope" fear mongering that the NRA uses to shut down even popular gun restrictions, and it is just as irresponsible. First, a state cannot prosecute you for conduct occurring solely in another state. Second, even if Roe v. Wade is overturned, there is no reason to think that most states would ban or severely restrict abortion. Finally, given how controversial abortion is in this country, it seems to me that permitting abortion while restricting the use of public funds to pay for it is a reasonable compromise. Nonprofit organizations can and should provide assistance to women who cannot afford to pay for an abortion.
2
@The Judge Medicaid pays for medical care for people who are poor. It should pay for all needed medical care including abortion. It should pay for all birth control methods to prevent abortion. Including vasectomies. Not using public funds is NOT a reasonable compromise. It is an exclusion that lowers the value of women.
7
@The Judge
And yours is an uninformed comment. Spreading misinformation is not responsible.
First of all, you assume without showing that most women who need abortions in red states can easily travel to get them, or that red states would respect jurisdictional boundaries. Surely they'd simply run a woman through an investigation to determine whether the impermissible abortion happened in the red state, which is still pretty darn damaging.
Second, did you look at the map? Lots of states will ban or severely restrict abortion. You haven't been paying attention.
Third, we've already reached your proposed compromise. Federal funds *cannot* be used for abortions. Some states allow their tax dollars to be used, but you can best believe that red states aren't among those.
Fourth, non profit organizations can and do assist women, but women shouldn't have to rely on non-profits to get the health care they need.
Hope that clears it all up for you.
16
@The Judge: Nobody in the US has any Constitutional authority to enact laws to force others to practice their own religion.
5
By 2040, people will have gotten the message. At the bottom of our huge problems with climate change and pollution of the only world we and other life on this planet have is overpopulation. For self-preservation purposes, most sane people will want concerted efforts to limit or even to reduce our population numbers. Otherwise, we and the rest of higher life on earth are toast!
1
@Data researcher Climate change has been around for along time. the present situation in our country makes it clear than sane people do not vote enough. The election of the current president shows that racism, religion, and the insanity that goes along with that is prevailing at the moment
1
Fast forward to 2052.
The lack of Roe v Wade has dampened the electoral fervor of evangelical voters, and millennial progressives started voting in a solidly Democratic federal government for the past 20 years. The last of the Trump arch-conservative judges are now retiring, although there are two holdouts on the Supreme Court who are generally on the losing end of 7-2 decisions on social policy.
The right to privacy was reinstated by the court less than 10 years ago, and a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the same right is close to ratification.
Planned Parenthood is back in all 52 states (Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are now represented in Congress).
11
@Fred B Uh, you left out the State of New Columbia!
@Fred B Do not get too comfortable. The catholic church is targeting the young (colleges) with their anti-woman rhetoric
1
@The Judge Right. all 53 States :-)
Far too many comments about the patriarchy and the war on women. There are more women voters than male voters. The main reason that there are so many restrictions on abortion is because women voters vote for Republican candidates that appose choice. Let's never forget that 53% of white women voted for Donald Trump when he promised evangelicals that he would put anti-choice judges on all the course. And guess what, we now have Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and guess how they will vote. If choice was really important to women, they should vote for it.
15
@Sipa111
"Let's never forget that 53% of white women voted for Donald Trump..."
With respect, that refers only to the number who actually voted — not to the total number of eligible white female voters in 2016.
Then there is this:
"Donald Trump Didn't Really Win 52% of White Women in 2016"
https://time.com/5422644/trump-white-women-2016/
1
@Sipa111 The women you are talking about are raised int he same brainwashed culture as the men. Many women do not believe they deserve a choice or to think for themselves. I asked several women (who have jobs) why they voted for Trump, their answer, was that they believed a woman could not be a leader. We need to put anger to the side and show women and men that women have an equal value to men
4
@Sipa111
Your understanding of patriarchy and misogyny is not very thorough. Women can be misogynistic. Women perpetuate patriarchal systems. It's a question of ideology, not gender.
This is a basic concept.
Also really not sure why you blame women for voting for republicans but not men who also vote for republicans. Just stop.
Many of us *did* vote "for choice." Also, which candidate got more votes? How do you explain that, if you conclude that choice isn't really important to women?
Critical thinking, people.
5
If women stopped having sex with men, citing they were the ones left to suffer the consequences, I wonder how these legislative ideas might change?
18
@Ange The problem is cultural and not merely about being a woman
2
The good news is that the U.S. is becoming more secular and educated, particularly among the young. Same as around the globe.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2016/04/160422-atheism-agnostic-secular-nones-rising-religion/
9
@Maggie Education is good but does not always lead to morality. There are many facts that show abortion as a medical procedure but many refuse the facts
1
A nightmarish glimpse into a dystopian Fascist future that has its roots in present day America.
24
Canada got rid of this uncivilized nonsense several decades ago. The United States is so backwards on so many issues.
35
Moron level stuff. Most Americans are in favor of allowing abortion at least until about 20 weeks, in accordance with most of the world. Maybe some states would succeed in outlawing abortions, but most would not. And even some of the ones that do outlaw it will change, since most of them have majorities actually in favor of legalization.
4
@Alan "...since most of them have majorities actually in favor of legalization."
Given the extensive gerrymandering in many states, the fact that a majority of a population favors something is almost irrelevant. We used to talk about protecting the minority from the tyranny of the majority. Now, it is the majority that needs protection.
32
Robbiesimon,
I am a pro life woman. The movement is winning support. I participated in a vigil on Saturday and we overwhelmed the pro abortionists four to one. They did not see this coming. A wonderful surprise occurred. Our group of 150 people was joined by a group of another 150 pro life people. It was so heartwarming and was the push pro lifers needed to continue this movement. I expect our next gathering to only grow larger. Word of mouth makes a huge difference to those who oppose abortion.
3
@KMW Yes, and we're on the verge of going the way of El Salvador where even a miscarriage is viewed as being suspicious with women being consigned to prison for a natural (and sad) progression of events. Back alley abortions? Well, hopefully, the morning after pill will become all the more available...although I suspect such persons as yourself will then shift to trying to stop such crucial medications coming through the mail. Sad. We're about to see a real resurgence of Jane, the underground abortion network that was in place prior to Roe.
49
@KMW No one is "pro abortion." Defenders of abortion rights are in favor of the right to privacy; we are not advocating for anyone to get an abortion. If you don't want an abortion, don't get one.
19
@KMW 64% of New York state residents support abortion rights. I'm guessing in your city of residence it exceeds 85%. I guess having 300 people show up is showing the burgeoning movement!
5
You had me up until Connecticut and Mass banned abortion.
We have a pretty good idea of what states lean that way, and which don't. Religion is on the decline, especially evangelical Christianity. They will life hell on earth for women in states like Alabama, and sadly even Ohio, but we are well out of their reach. And a mass movement of women repulsed by those laws will only change demographics in blue states further blue, and the red states further red.
It will be a nightmare, but lets be real, we are not Alabama.
9
@Ken. The problem with blue states become bluer and red states becoming redder is that it will entrench conservatives in power due to their control of the Electoral College and the Senate. At that point, with no hope of fair treatment, the blue states will seek to secede only to be blocked by the red states fearful of losing the money that keeps them afloat.
3
I choose to believe that California, Washington, and Oregon left the Union in this alternate timeline.
41
The most excellent work on the subject, Michelle Oberman’s Her Body, Our Laws discusses the situation in Chile and El Salvador, two countries where abortion is illegal under ALL circumstances. Data indicates that the incidence has increased, not fallen, due to pharmacological intervention. That same trend is evident in the US. Many Red States have pretty much eliminated clinical abortion de facto, but modern drug technology will frustrate their efforts. Overturning Roe v Wade will have little effect on the status quo despite alarmist visions. Its main consequence will be the decimation of the Republican Party as millions of low information, single issue evangelical voters stay home. I say bring it on. John Roberts has a brilliant if twisted mind, and he knows all this. He is happy to chip away at women’s reproductive rights with alacrity, but he will not vote to overturn.
17
So I would assume that by 2040 California, the economic engine, has left the union? And New York the home fiscal malfunction is the beacon?
6
With the dream of an official Christian America finally enshrined into the Constitution by the Constitutional Convention of 2028, led by President Pence, abortion has been completely outlawed across America, and pregnant women are no longer allowed to travel to Scandinavia because of the possibility that they might terminate a sacred life. Birth control in all forms has also been enshrined in the new Constitution, since God does not favor leaving the decision of having children in the hands of American adults, his children. Americans accept these changes, and pray about them daily in school and in places of employment, as required by law.
19
such fear mongering.
conservative judges traditionally do NOT overturn settled case law.
3
@Yes to Progress Then the current five conservative judges are either not conservative or conservatives do overturn settled case law.
On the current SCOTUS docket is an abortion case from Louisiana which is identical to the case from Texas SCOTUS decided when Justice Kennedy was alive. IT was just three years ago. Yet, somehow it made it to the court.
Sure looks like conservatives are ready to overturn settled case law.
48
@Yes to Progress. Even if they don't overturn Roe v. Wade, they can accept restrictions that eliminate access to it. What good is the "right" to obtain an abortion if there are no facilities within 800 miles?
14
@Yes to Progress This right-wing-packed SOTUS is very willing and able to do just that.
4
Pray tell, what is the political motivation for banning abortion in this forecast? Does anyone actually believe that evangelical Christians will be a bigger voting force in two decades time than they are today? It's hard to imagine that today's young people will be as easily swayed into blindly accepting religious dogma as their grandparents were, for a variety of reasons. The Greatest Generation has already left the stage and the Silent Generation is following closely behind, so it's really just a question of math.
5
Ms. Ferriss doesn't address fertility clinics. If the pro-lifers were at all consistent they would try to shut those down. Interesting that they don't.
16
@Ana They do try to shut them down. They are against fertility clinics. They say if you are infertile that is the Lord's will. Yet when a baby born is so premature, they have no problem using every medical device to keep that baby alive, many times at the detriment of the baby.
1
@Jane
I'm sure some of them are but you don't see massive picketing etc. of fertility clinics or pressure to shut them down as you do with abortion clinics.
2
If this column is indicative of your Futuristic Op-Eds one can only hope that you reconsider this idea. So far it reeks of fear mongering and sloppy thinking. We are not in need of more of either.
9
The Hubristic Arrogance of the author's position on this contentious subject dripped throughout this entire screed.
5
Perhaps, one day males will figure out the user directions for condoms, self-control and respect, or simply the zipper.
There is no such thing as an immaculate conception.
51
I think that in 2040 it will be very hard to prohibit abortion. Chemical abortion is widely available today. It will be even more so in 2040. Even in areas where abortion is prohibited it is very hard to limit access to abortion pills.
31
This will not happen. Yes, the right wing court will wield its new power...and soon...but not to outlaw abortion. Why would they end the number one scam for duping the working class into voting Republican? They constantly campaign and raise money on abortion...but once in power, all they ever bring into law are tax cuts for the rich, rollbacks of regulations and more loopholes for corporate theft. The Red Court will keep making it harder to get a safe, legal, affordable abortion. But get rid of abortion? Never.
29
@El Dan-o This Supreme Court would not outlaw abortion. It may rule that abortion is not a right guaranteed by the Constitution and is thus left for the legislatures to decide, but there is not one vote for the concept that the Constitution bans abortion.
6
@Alan I wish I could be more sure of that.
This Court likes to legislate from the bench.
4
You understate the case, Madam Ferriss.
Given the disinterest among a majority of Americans in citizenship and participating in the democratic process (evident in the 50% or lower voter turnout), on account of a well organized and funded coalition of religious fundamentalists, Wall Street interest, right wing extremists, armed militias, flat earthers, science deniers and the rest of the republicans - it should be pretty easy to push through their entirely diabolical agenda related to religious tests, unfettered ownership of dangerous weaponry, unrestrained pollution, dismantling of justice and education, decaying infrastructure in anywhere except in their enclaves, and ceaseless warring and strife.
In other words, given the thorough ineptitude of self-indulgent populists on the left and the ridiculous bill of goods they are trying to sell at this time with free-this-and-that, and dumb arguments of 'if we can give a tax cut to them, we should get this free' coupled with the disinterested majority of Americans, the republicans can install a fairly hellish version of a theocracy, a kleptocracy, and a banana republic with everyone other than them kept behind barbed wire or in prison.
Today they succeed in denying women of rights (with the help of women, no less). Tomorrow it is depriving other demographics of their rights. Until only they are free, and entirely and unquestioningly in charge of everything.
4
@Kalidan Thank you for pointing this out. Polls consistently show that majorities support at least some access to abortion, as well as sensible gun legislation, environmental regulations, and laws that protect minorities of all kinds from discrimination. This has been the case for decades.
And if the people who claim to favor these policies bothered to vote at a rate anywhere near that of the people who disfavor them, we wouldn't be having this conversation ... or so many others like it.
I believe the overturning of Roe will energize many formerly apathetic Americans, and that may be a good thing, even putting a dent in the Republican (minority) dominance of our politics at all levels.
Which is another way of saying that long after the horses have vacated the premises, a horde of plague-infested rats have moved in, and termites have infiltrated the structure and brought it crashing to the ground ... Hey, everybody, good news! Somebody's come to help us close the barn doors!
3
An important article. What it does not consider, though, is the rest of the world. While the US has joined the company of other abortion-restricting theocracies, such as Iran, Daesh (the Caliphate), and what is left of Afghanistan, progressive countries of the EU, China and the Israeli/Palestinian Confederacy are using genetic engineering to make their population stronger, smarter and disease-immune. Women and couples in these countries program their babies in accordance with general health guidelines and their own taste. “Unplanned pregnancy” is an oxymoron, and abortion is only used in the rare cases when the pregnancy does not go as planned. The US is crumbling under the weight of sick children and adults, suffering from diabetes, heart disease, and Down Syndrome, not to mention the surging crime and widespread child abuse and infanticide. The rest of the world, meanwhile, is reaching for the stars.
11
The possibility that Roe v. Wade might be overturned is a obviously a frightening one, and there are reliable statistics that tell us what a lack of access to abortion does NOW. We do not need gimmicky "Op-Eds from the Future" to tell us this, and as a rhetorical move, the NYT's entire series fails by taking immediate problems whose greatest hope of solution comes from hard facts on the ground into the realm of speculation. This paper's turn to infotainment disappointing.
5
The sentence that struck me was, "The residency requirement means that access to abortion hinges completely on wealth." That's why so many Republicons are happy to outlaw abortion -- they know that the rich will always be able to afford it.
35
Given the declining rate of male sperm counts will abortion even be an issue by 2050? You may be lucky if you can even conceive without help by 2050.
It seems like we're headed for 'A Brave New World' where all reproduction occurs in a lab.
9
I highly doubt it. The cancellation of Roe v Wade will move abortion from being a wedge issue that Republicans use to beat up on Democrats to a real political issue that has real impact. When Roe v. Wade was decided a number of states were moving towards legal and accessible abortions. Imagine how far we would be by now if the supreme court hadn't got in the way. Imagine how different our politics would be today if Republicans hadn't spent 50 years campaigning to overturn a court ruling by a non-democratic elite of nine, but instead had to justify their rules and laws restricting abortion to all Americans. Abortion wasn't even a Republican political issue until Roe v. Wade. Overturning that decision will be a setback for abortion rights, but is likely the only way forward long term for a broader political movement to enhance the reproductive rights of women.
2
Not sure I buy your reasoning. I suspect that abortion will remain a fraught issue and would have even without Roe. Our antiquated political system gives disproportionate power to red states and thereby to conservative voters.
7
@Tom Meadowcroft. Your argument sounds like the one that is sometimes advanced about the civil rights laws of the 1960s ... that they were divisive and unnecessary because (at some unspecified point in the far, far future), all the states would pass such laws on their own. It seems to be based on the assumption that all states will eventually respect the rights of even their most vulnerable citizens.
That's a highly debatable assumption. Alabama didn't muster the laws to remove the prohibition on interracial marriage from its constitution until 2000, 33 years after it had been rendered inoperative by Loving v. Virginia. A person's right to be treated equally in public accomodations, to marry the consenting adult of their choice or to have control of their reproduction shouldn't hinge on which state they live in. They should be universal rights.
11
Here's a different vision. It's 2040. Women and men are finally utilizing all the many legal birth control methods and morning after medications available. Amazing that women used to fight for the right to have an abortion - a painful, invasive procedure. Was there every a woman who said, 'Oh, I want to conceive tonight so I can have an abortion in a few months?' Finally, women got smart and fought to make the term 'unwanted pregnancy' an oxymoron.
11
@Betty Schwartz: A “painful, invasive procedure?” Not in my experience.
3
@Betty Schwartz. It appears that you're assuming that by 2040, no woman will ever be raped, that no woman will ever have a medical condition that makes pregnancy dangerous and that there will be no irreparable defects in a fetus?
4
The sad thing is, this may very well become our reality.
14
Interesting article. Eye opening comments!! One of the good outcomes of the past Presidential election has been the fact that the outcome got women off their yoga mats and into the voting booth. Frankly, I do not believe Roe will be overturned. It that happens, the wrath of outraged voters will destroy the current GOP. Not only will future electoral outcomes vastly favor pro choice candidates, with the long delayed passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, the abortion issue will no longer be mentioned in future political campaigns.
9
@Maureen From your mouth to God's ear! :-)
1
Ummm ... The writer appears to presuppose that the secession of the West Coast in 2028 was successful. But I'm not sure why Hawaii didn't join the saner 30% of the country, where figuring out how to meet social vs. fiscal challenges is what we do
13
@Steve, Looking back at the secession of the West Coast in 2028 (it seems so long ago) you conveniently have forgotten that it was caused by the San Andreas and other north-south fault lines acting together to cause the West Coast to split off and float away into the Pacific. Have patience. It will yet drift into Hawaii. The big picture still remains the North-East. You may recall that after Trump was released from prison he proceeded to build his big and beautiful wall around the North-East to separate us from the surrounding yokels. If nothing else, we will someday have our independence and our own immigration laws.
1
The sonogram will help with the decision for the conservative Supreme Court justices to overturn the abortion ruling from 1973. This had not been invented when Roe v Wade was decided. Many abortion doctors left the abortion business once they determined there was life within the womb. They actually saw the little hands and feet of those babies. This will also help sway their decision that abortion is wrong and immoral.
2
The “antis” think that, because of sonograms, technology is on their side. Unfortunately for them, technology will also give women medication abortions - or other ways for women to get the abortions they need that haven’t even been developed yet. (Where there’s a will, there’s a way.)
15
@Robbiesimon Antichoicers also ignore the health effects of making abortion freely available. Before Roe v. Wade, NY and CA eliminated their laws against abortion. Beginning in the next year, maternal deaths from abortion were reduced by 70%.
18
@KMW
In most cases there are no 'little hands' to see - rather, a blur that appears to be a kidney bean. But you knew that.
12
By 2040 it will be impossible to ignore the ravages to the economy and global migration that climate change will have. Abortion won't be what's on anyone's mind, or the issue will have shifted to one of population and migration
21
Foolishness, because Ms. Ferriss nowhere mentions the abortion pill that is becoming in many places the first choice for pregnancy termination, and which will be impossible to regulate. More likely by 2040 states will be permitted to place stricter limits on 2nd and 3rd term abortions, like in so much of Europe. Some states (Mississippi, Utah, North Dakota, Texas) will do that, while others (New York, California, New Jersey will enshrine the right of women to terminate pregnancies for any reason or no reason, including sex selection, right up to the moment of birth. Dystopian speculation requires plausibility. This column lacks it.
8
I really thought that once the Pill was common and widespread, abortions would drop to a tiny statistic, but 2015 (638,169) is the same as 1973 (615,831).
5
@RonRich The U.S. population increased by about 50% during that time frame (an increase of 109 million people). I did some quick math with your numbers, and assuming they are correct, there was less than a 4% increase in the total number of abortions. So the abortion RATE is a tiny fraction of what it once was given how many more people there are in the country. So, yes, abortions have dropped to "a tiny statistic" of what they once were.
26
@Heidi
You can parse the numbers into RATEs or ratios, but if each abortion equals one woman there are still over 600,000 women either who cannot or do not use contraception. The fact this number remains unchanged after 45 years is disgraceful.
1
@RonRich
Contraception fails, and many abortions are due to rape (1 in 3 women over the course of a lifetime), or health issues with either the mother or fetus that appear during the course of a pregnancy. Even if a "perfect" contraceptive is developed, you would still see a non-zero abortion rate due to factors outside of a woman's control.
5
Honestly, the Dems should get ahead of it and go pro-life right now. The left would have a coherent message of the good ticket and the GOP would hold all evils. Dems would get the evangelicals back and they'd win. It's a GOP issue anyways. The same necessary evil rationale that protects gun ownership --protects abortion. Necessary evil issues are not supposed to be with the liberals. Just because you are born a woman doesn't mean you should support progressives. Who hasn't worked a campaign and met plenty of women who are more republican than Paul Ryan but are there because of THE issue. Let's restore sanity to our political schism. Twisted stuff on the right - stuff you can stomach on the left. This would allow us the power to stop climate change...so that's why I'm on this limb about to be called stupid comment 1,000 times.
4
@Sam Cons: Sacrificing a women’s autonomy of her body in order to.... beat Republicans and presumably save the climate? You’re gonna need to do more than beat Republicans in order to address climate change as well.
Either way pandering isn’t what the left needs to do right now.
8
I'm pro-choice but often wonder if it could be strategic to agree with conservatives that a pregnancy is a life. In other words, the argument changes from "life versus rights" to "whose life is more important if the two are in opposition?" I think a fully formed, autonomous adult human life is more important. I don't understand how a fetus can be elevated over the well-being of an adult human. I feel like men in particular live in a fantasy-land where they imagine that forced birth causes no harmful effects to the minds or bodies of women.
11
@Sam: That analogy makes no sense. A gun is not a part of the owner’s body, so it is hardly a violation of his or her fundamental right to corporeal autonomy to take it away. I’m going to guess that you’re a man, and you can therefore be casual about this “necessary evil” because it will never happen to you.
6
In 2040, I hope someone will have the courage to widely publicize the abortion ritual described in Numbers. Or better yet, let’s get the word out now that Mosaic law allowed abortion in the case of an unfaithful wife who conceived as a result of an extramarital relationship. The Bible is a double-edged sword that women’s-health advocates need to learn how to wield.
8
I'm pretty sure that if evangelicals were persuaded by scripture, they would demand reforms to CBP/ICE and we would have a social support structure that made sure no one went hungry or lacked access to medicare.
18
@Drusilla Hawke And just to make sure she would never do it again (commit adultery), the (not so) good book also prescribes that she be stoned to death, which Jesus prevented when he told the crowd: "Let you amongst you who has not sinned cast the first stone." And the crowd left without a stone being cast.
1
Abortion pills will soon be everywhere and regular abortions will go into hiding again. Poor women will be the ones who are impinged upon most. Wealthy people are above the law including wealthy women. The war on abortion is like the war on drugs in that it gives some people a political tool, but drugs and abortions will never not be accessible to those who want them and can afford them.
2
bro I lowkey wish abortion was not illegal in georgia for so many reasons but I'm just gonna leave it at responding to all these "pro-life" comments with ok boomer.
1
The article inadvertently highlights the currently disproportionate impact of abortions on black babies. Why should a reduction in the current holocaust of black (as well as other) foetuses be treated as implicitly oppressive, rather than potentially liberating?
4
@richard mccrensky, may we assume from your comment that you believe that pregnant women of color are incapable of self-determination?
26
The issue is agency. Do you trust women to make the decision on what to do with their bodies or do you want to cede that agency to others. If this is carried to its endpoint then male masturbation is just as serious because of the potential of lost babies. I think that since I am not able to become pregnant my control over that agency is limited to a request for an outcome, nothing more. I am also deeply suspicious about the groups who care so much for the babies to be born but then give no care or concern after.
25
@Jeff And the Bible the anti-abortion crowd endlessly thumps makes no mention of abortion while it does condemn masturbation (also called onanism in the tale about Onan having "cast his seed upon the wall"). I have often thought that the thumping of their Bibles has removed the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus said: "Do unto others as you would have done to you."
The one thing that this futuristic article should have included are some of the stats that surround the abortion prohibition -- namely, the increased crime rates (and violent crime rates), the increase in incarceration rates, the increase in welfare benefits, and the continued erosion of America's place in the world relative to literacy and education.
Remember, Republicans forget the pro-life actually includes, you know, living beings, not just forcing fetuses into the world. Those lives are never born into a vacuum, especially the lives born from minority populations.
21
There's a very real possibility that the Untied States will no longer exist in its present form in 2040. Western Coastal Elitistan, made up of the former California, Oregon and Washington, will have its East Coast counterpart, made up of New York, Massachusetts, etc., leaving "Biblestan" in the center of country.
18
@Scott
You may be shocked to discover that Arizona, Texas, Nevada, Illinois, Virginia (at least the more populous parts) Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania--and maybe even Georgia would likely join Elitistan (of coarse Florida and Ohio will still be on the fence and waver from year to year). In other words--states representing 70% of the total population.
5
The premise of the piece, that every state except NY and Hawaii outlaw abortion, is preposterous. California is 2/3 democrat. How about Massachusetts? What happened to make the country feel this way? What sudden unbelievable upheaval caused all these people to want to outlaw abortion? This is not an oped story worth publishing because it's too absurd to have happen. (Yes almost as absurd if you predicted in 1980 that DJT would be president)
4
It's 2040. There is no more United States. There are four or so formerly united but now utterly divided countries.
The ones that allowed for free or subsidized birth control and safe, legal abortion are thriving, first-world countries because women (and men) were allowed to have agency over their lives, children who were born were desired and planned for, both emotionally and financially.
The countries that criminalized abortion are now third-world failed states, overwhelmed by poverty and ignorance and crime, waiting for god or one of Javanka's kids to save them.
And the wall the first-world states have built is impenetrable.
58
Such a crazy futuristic scenario seems likely thanks to Roberts. As for another crazy futuristic scenario, my husband often jokes that the the West Coast will secede at some point. I respond that the East Coast will follow. Washington, Oregon, and California will do just fine as West Coast. Maine to Maryland (not Pennsylvania) will be fine as East Coast. The rest of the country will be run by Texas.
16
I've heard similar thoughts about secession from some liberal California residents. In my view, this will only come to pass if residents of other states have a controlling voice in the matter.
1
@Kristine You're wrong about Pennsylvania.
That's a very sad imagination for a liberal article. No wonder Americans got Mr. Trump elected as president. His victory was a response for all this nonsense (fictional or real). The border between wrong and correct is fading away.
This is just another vicious article trying to convince that killing innocent unborn babies is a women health issue.
Is there any hope for mankind? Why should we care about the environment ?
It's sad to the traditional family values disappear.
for the love of family
Mother Father and Children i write this comment. May God guides in the right path! We are lost!
3
@Paul Durro:
1. All babies, everywhere, have already been born.
2. Zygotes, blastocysts, embryos, and fetuses are not "innocent", as they lack this capacity. You would, of course, agree that if a pregnancy severely injures or kills a pregnant woman, that the product of conception is not "guilty" of assault or murder, correct? Then a POC cannot be "innocent", either.
3. Reproductive justice is indeed a women's health issue.
57
@Paul Durro That's your God- not mine.
11
@Paul Durro
If embryos are so obviously worth saving, then why do you insist on calling them "innocent unborn babies"?
Just call them embryos. Use the correct words. Unless you think that you need maudlin, emotive language to make your point, because everyone *actually* understands that embryos aren't that valuable. Better to dress it up as *~*innocent baybeeees*~* so maybe people will think that women are out there killing blue-eyed 6 month olds in onesies, amirite?
Talking about the guilt or innocence of something that does not have the mental capacity to make a choice--and that is not even sentient--is ridiculous.
38
One can only pray that a landmark ruling overturns Roe v Wade and that one day abortion will be illegal everywhere, including NY.
3
@Cynthia starks amen!
1
@Cynthia starks
Do you want to raise any of the unplanned and unwanted babies born to women denied control of their own bodies? Do you really want to condemn women impregnated by their rapists, who may be a family member, to spend the rest of their lives with a living reminder for which they must provide care, of the violence done to them. Do you want to sentence to death women whose continued carrying of pregnancy is likely to be fatal to both them and their respective fetuses? Perhaps you should pray for the well being of the actual living women whose welfare clearly means nothing or less than nothing to you.
21
@Cynthia starks Hoping that reinstating Prohibition will soon follow.
6
Michigan Public Act 328 of 1931 reads: “Administering drugs, with intent to procure miscarriage — Any person who shall willfully administer to any pregnant woman any medicine, drug, substance or thing whatever, or shall employ any instrument or other means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of any such woman, unless the same shall have been necessary to preserve the life of such woman, shall be guilty of a felony, and in case the death of such pregnant woman be thereby produced, the offense shall be deemed manslaughter.”
If Roe v. Wade is overturned, this law, still on the books, will be our starting point.
4
@Michigander that will be just great!
1
@Michigander
Like alcohol prohibition, marijuana prohibition, non-pharmaceutical abortion prohibition...this law will fail, create judicial and political chaos, and criminalize citizens who are attempting to exercise their rights to life and liberty. However given the ease of procuring and administering mifepristone, even trying to enforce this law would require radical invasions of constitutional privacy rights--and would fail
5
@Michigander
Then it's a good thing drugs are so poorly controlled in our country. Abortion drugs will not be rare.
7
This is an issue for such a narrow range of time in a woman's life. There should be more time spent on access to infertility treatments.
1
@TH
No. Just. No. All women need to control their fertility for about, say, 30-40 years.
Most women don't even suffer from infertility.
23
@TH Narrow range - potentially from age 10 to late 40's?
9
@TH A narrow range of time? Really? Thirty-plus years of fertility? Three hundred and fifty months of fearing pregnancy? Lifetimes full of rage? If you want to ban abortion and deny choice, adopt half a dozen unwanted 'blessings' and THEN I might have regard for your opinion.
25
Trying adding the abortion pill into this future scenario. Say it's outlawed in almost every state so that it's sold on the black market. Like other illegal drugs, the abortion pill carries the risk of being fake or even toxic. There are no controls over what desperate women are actually buying. Of course it's expensive too. The fake pills are the lesser danger. The toxic pills will once again cause women to suffer and die from illegal abortions.
12
Give trump a second term and three more picks and this dystopia is reality.
I don't know why women don't see that voting red will bring it to term.
45
Clever idea. Can we expect an Op-Ed from 2040 that covers how the "open borders act" signed by President Warren in 2022 destroyed was left of our country?
5
@Midwest Josh What has Elizabeth Warren said that leads you to believe she would support open borders?
16
@Jon
Even far left Mother Jones Mag agrees Elizabeth Warren advocates for open borders.
Here is her immigration plan:
• Decriminalizes unauthorized immigration and returns to the civil enforcement we had before George Bush began Operation Streamline.
• Eliminates abusive immigration enforcement and keeps law enforcement at arms length from CBP and ICE.
• Reduces and reforms immigrant detention.
• Reforms immigration courts.
• Raises the refugee cap to 125,000 and affirms refugee protections.
• Reforms legal immigration and creates a path to citizenship.
When someone from the crowd at a recent campaign stop yelled for her to support legalizing all the current 22+ million illegals, she yelled back, "I'm already there!"
2
I live in New York City; immigration has been quite a boon. We've got entire neighborhoods filled with restaurants and small businesses started by these legal and yes in some cases illegal immigrants.
8
Try this for futurism: It's 2040, and the artificial womb has finally been developed. Now a woman with an unwanted pregnancy has another option: transfer instead of termination. It's expensive so most can't afford it, but a movement for public funding of the procedure with no questions asked is growing. Arrayed against them are those concerned by the millions of babies who will be born orphans, and there are those who would rather not spend tax money on women they consider careless. The fundamentalists are vexed. This could be a way out of the abortion struggle, but it means breaking with conservatives over the need for higher taxes. Liberals aren't sure what to do either. They still see a woman's right to choose as sacrosanct, yet everything else they advocate for socially is imperilled by a fertility rate that has now dipped below one child per woman and a population that is 30% over the age of 70. There were riots the last time they raised the retirement age, and the Grey Panthers are now on the list of terrorist groups. America really needs more babies, and the whole abortion issue may be about to flip.
10
But just think of all those beautiful babies that will be saved from abortion. They will thank us for sparing their lives. This is a positive thing.
2
@KMW Yeah honestly this sounds like a dream!
4
@KMW
Sorry, my heart is too busy breaking for the actual living, breathing, thinking, feeling women who will be forced to give birth against their wills.
Also, I'm not sure why you're giving yourself credit for "sparing" their lives. You aren't the one who did all the hard work of gestating and childbirth, now are you? Someone else did that. Remember her? The woman you forced into servitude? But you want the thank you card. Charming.
80
@KMW, "They will thank us for sparing their lives. "
Nah, there are plenty of us who do not thank our parents for "sparing our lives".
Not that my life is bad!
But if I had been aborted a few months after conception then I never would have known about it. When the abortion would have occurred, I did not yet exist. That "proto-me" had no feelings, no consciousness, no ability to form memories. As best as our science can tell, at that point there was "no one home".
So if I had been aborted, then the me that sits here today, talking to you, would never have existed.
Any of us might never have existed if our parents had simply not had sex the day they did. Should I thank them for that, too? And should I blame them for all the children that they *could* have had, but didn't?
84
And, without any doubt or hesitation whatsoever, Chicago.
3
"The true motive of this bill is not economic but religious: as part of Senator Higginbottom’s previous attempt, in 2035, to eliminate choice, he stood on the Senate floor and quoted from the Bible."
^ The perfidy of the Higginbottoms of New York truly has no bounds. At least the Roosevelts and the Lodges had a social conscience. First the Higginbottom dynasty turned Governors Island into a casino resort in 2030 and then they go and do this.
8
I’m hoping by then young men and women will have learned to use contraception.
6
@Neildsmith - Contraception fails, often. A condom has an 18% failure rate. Hormonal birth control, with a 2% failure rate when everything goes perfectly, fails when a woman takes an antibiotic or a number of other prescribed medications. Doctors don't tell women that.
Hormonal contraceptives must also be taken once a day, every single day, at roughly the same time of day. That's asking a lot of fallible human beings. That's why 1/2 of all pregnancies in the US were unintended, and why 1/4 of US women have an abortion by age 45. (Prior to the ACA, it was 1/3 of US women). For a woman never to have an unintended pregnancy, her contraception must work 100% perfectly every single month for the entire 35-40 years of her reproductive life.
32
@MegWright Babies are not destroyed in the womb. Fetuses are removed. Please don't romanticize the outcome for the lives these aborted fetuses would have been forced to live - mothers whose careers were destroyed, parents who have no money to afford bringing them up, drug addicted mothers passing on their addiction to their babies. Women do NOT just arbitrarily decide to have abortions. Painful, intelligent thought goes into each decision and forcing parenthood on those who do not want it or are not able to handle it is cruel and unusual punishment.
62
@Neildsmith You can't use contraception that is hard to get. Condoms are at every drugstore, right? Because that is how a man controls his choice. Women must jump thru hoops to access birth control in many parts of this county.
It's about control of women. And that is the bottom line.
23
As a pro life woman, I wish the facts were true. The ending of legal abortion my come sooner than people think. Pro life groups continue to make a difference in their opposition but much still needs to be done. The life of the unborn is of utmost importance to us. We cringe when we think that babies are being destroyed in the womb. We want to put an end to this barbarism. And soon.
1
@KMW I often search for the politician against abortion who is actively for free birth control pills, IUDs, condoms - and spreading whatever is the most effective sex ed program working in any state and a barrage of sex-ed style advertisements. Colorado's work with providing IUDs helped dramatically drop the unplanned pregnancy rate (and the abortion rate). Where is that politician? Where is the policy? Why won't GOPers - while they are trying to outlaw abortion - try to actively limit unplanned pregnancies?
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@Jeff Proving that the way to reduce abortions is to keep it legal and do what Colorado's done is real "pro-life" while also being "pro-woman" legislation. Unfortunately, what most pro-lifers really want is to control women, not reduce the abortion rate.
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@Amy That appears to be so, but I want to be open to someone who can show me a politician who is counter to this. Even if I wouldn't agree with their overall political stance, I could see they were working on a solution beyond the simply outlawing abortion one.
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There are two fallacies in this article. First, overturning Roe v. Wade will energize millions of women who are not presently focused on this issue, which will likely limit the number of states that can pass or sustain anti-abortion legislation. Second, and possibly more important, the availability and improvement of abortion-by-pill will minimize this issue. The laws against illegal drugs have been on the books for years and have done little to reduce their availability or use; and remember Prohibiton?
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@EdNY Might it also energize men? Or is this issue that impacts half of humanity entirely up to women to address?
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@EdNY,
The "pro-life" states are already working to crack down on abortion-by-pill, and will continue to do so.
Government so small that it can fit in your uterus!
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@KC Yes, I read The Handmaid's Tale. It should entirely be up to women what happens to their own bodies, yes.
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Americans cross into Canada at Niagara Falls or Buffalo or Cornwall, Preston or the 1000 Islands. They can walk across at most of the bridges.
They can get free or near free abortion pills or procedures that are funded by donations from around the world. In case of nosy US border agents, they get the paraphernalia of a visit to the Shaw or Stratford theater.
In Canada, there are no abortion laws and haven't been for decades. That was accidental, but now it won't change. In the 2019 general election, none of the major parties even want to talk about abortion, let alone change from no laws
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@sheldon
Heck, drones can ferry large batches of abortion pills in from Mexico and Canada. Smuggling of those drugs will skyrocket. As will young women traveling to be sterilized or just to emigrate to a safe non-misogynist, non-slave nation.
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@sheldon. The problem you Canadians will be facing is the number of Americans who, after getting a glimpse of a modern and democratic society, refuse to return home and instead demand asylum.
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@sheldon When New South Wales legalised abortion last month, it was the last Australian state to do so. Abortion is now legal in every Australian jurisdiction, as it should be.
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On the bright side, if I am still here, I’ll be in my 90s, and my daughter will be in her 50s, and should be able to hop a flight up to Canada.
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@Rockaway Pete You sure we'd take you? It's 2040, and Canadians are sick of all these refugees from south of the border who think they can just come to our country because their's has gone to hell.
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@Thollian
These refugees in 2040 are 1st world educated, SECULAR and INTELLIGENT, peaceful, employable women, not like the criminal males back home and those 3rd worlders who come into the U.S. now.
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Terrifying as this dystopian scenario is, I find it difficult to believe the majority of American women would tolerate it. That 48 states would have a majority voting for women to be state property is quite a leap of imagination, and I'm giving Americans, men and women, more credit than that. If Roe is overturned, I think we can expect a flourishing Underground Railroad in abortifacient drugs and women willing to help each other. This op-ed assumes a passivity from American women that I doubt exists any longer, especially on the heels of the Me Too movement
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@Donna Graham Remember “The Handmaids Tale”.
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@Susan RJ I do indeed, and that is exactly why I believe strongly that U.S. women will simply never allow it. Repeal the 19th and freeze our bank accounts? Expect civil insurrection!
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Regardless of law, the rich can always arrange what they want.
But then, laws always favored the rich.
And the poor will do what they have to in order to survive. The number of abortions will not change much. Why would they? No doubt US jails will be filled with young women.
Conservative Americans will be so happy that the rich can do anything while the poor are incarcerated.
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The problem with outlawing something that has been legal for decades was illustrated by prohibition. Yes, red states will do this. But when mothers see their daughters going to jail for something they themselves did without penalty, the GOP will found it has stepped on its tiny mushroom. These laws will last 20 years tops, before the backlash forces them to back the heck off making us follow their religious beliefs.
In the meantime, kids will decide being Christian, like being Republican, is to embrace hypocrisy and religious bigotry.
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@JLW
And, thereby collapsing BOTH the Republican Party and the Christian Church.
"We tried to warn them, " a bystander was heard to say. "But they wouldn't listen."
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this is quite the leap. especially the part where every heavily democratic state outlaws abortions. Come on. Certainly the 7 states you listed could go this way, and perhaps some others, but the whole country? Nonsense.
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@Jay Don't underestimate how unwilling many liberals and Democrats are to stand up and make a full-throated defense of abortion. How many elected officials--especially men--do you think would stand on the floor of their state house and make a strong, impassioned speech explicitly in favor of abortion? Not "women's health" or "a woman's right to choose" but the A-word: ABORTION.
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@Jay Yes!
The best way to have fewest abortions is to provide life long affordable, local shame free women's reproductive healthcare, including abortions. Obamacare made a law that all insurance had to cover contraceptions, resulting in the fewest # of teens pregnant in history. Rolling back Roe will INCREASE abortions Increase dead mommies, INCREASE unwanted babies. That would make those that have changed the rules with INCREASED responsibility for all of it. Thanks.
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@4AverageJoe
Rolling back Roe is about controlling women's sexuality. It has no other purpose. It's a way to "keep women in their place".
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Harrowing, though hardly beyond imagination. We do seem to be starting on a dark, dismal backward march on women's health. And it seems likely to be even worse and more draconian than even pre-Roe.
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@Jack
Nope.
At 71, I remember pre-Roe.
In fact, I remember pre-DNA.
Today a simple swipe in the mouth and it's all over but his crying.
And writing a check every month.
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@rosa .. Provided the mother can afford to take the man she believes to be the father to court, should he refuse to take a paternity test. There's no guarantee the court will order it.
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@SilentEcho
Yup. That might happen. But consider this; In the 50's and 60's there were very few female attorneys. Today they are more than half of the graduating class. Someone will start a non-profit exclusively for paternity cases; and, if the Republican Party and Supreme Court have their way, and both abortion and birth control are no longer accessible, then it will fall to the states to carry the financial burden of caring for the millions of new babies that will be popping up.
States are notorious for going for the "deep pockets".
They will hunt these men down and access THEIR wallets rather than go bankrupt.
Since Roe was made law, this country has not had to deal with the economics of this.
Now they will have to.
And, now the Republican Party, the evangelicals and the men who have shrugged it all off through all of these years are all in for a HUGE surprise.
This is not going to go the way they think.
Yes, they can force a woman to bear 30 kids ---- but that 'Baby-Daddy' is no longer going to walk off.
New York Times: How about a history of 50's and 60's solutions when there was no abortion?
Shotgun marriages?
Run off and join the army?
Become a priest?
Have her try to pass the baby off as her 'sister'?
This world no longer remembers why MEN passed the laws to make abortion LEGAL!
I'll bet your readers would be interested on how Granddaddy handled it......yes?
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This is ridiculous. Roe being overturned would simply push the matter back on to the states. There are plenty of Blue states out there, or do people really believe California is going to ban abortions? This means that, initially, the country would be split, but having to actually live with abortion restrictions would probably cause at least some red states to change their tunes.
Honestly, I think the country as a whole would have been better off if the supreme court had never invented the "right to privacy" out of thin air. Each state would have been able to legislate on the issue as it saw fit, and the evangelical lust for federal power would have been tempered without their favorite issue.
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@KM ,
You're missing one important point. Take the scenario where not only do Red states outlaw abortion, but they also charge women with crimes who have had an abortion in a Blue state, but want to return home (Red state).
Those women will want to stay in Blue states. Then because of the overwhelming need for abortion, Blue states will begin having residency requirements of such a period of time that a young woman trying to leave her Red state for an abortion will simply have no options (as most cannot afford to go out of the country for the procedure).
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@Nicholas Rush And how would Red state governments even know that women were travelling out of state for abortions? Any attempt to prosecute women for crimes committed in other states would be immediately shot down by federal courts as lacking jurisdiction.
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@KM You are correct. If I rob a bank in New York I cannot be tried in Ohio (my resident state) for that crime. New York would have to issue a warrant for my arrest and extradite me. That would not happen if the crime was not illegal in New York.
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This vision of the future supposes that America remains on our current trajectory. We won't. As the Boomers (finally) start fading away, America is going to swing hard and fast to the left.
Millennial and Gen Z women will be at the height of their power by 2040, and the abortion debate will seem like an outmoded piece of history. Of course women will have the ability to make decisions about their body - just as it always should have been.
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We can hope, but we must work for it to be so.
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The Supreme Court could re-interpret the 4th amendment right to privacy because it is not enumerated directly in the Constitution as that specific right, but re-define the right to "be secure in their persons" to include complete control over reproduction by all sexes. It could also cite the 8th amendment against cruel and unusual punishment in terms of forcing a woman to bring a baby to term that was the result of rape or incest. If Roe is outlawed, abortion will just go underground, mostly by administering black market mifepristone, which would probably turn out to be worse than coat hangers based on the country's experiences with opioids and counterfeit drugs. When Roberts says the court is not partisan, he means they don't weigh political outcomes. Let's hope they weigh practical ones.
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This weirdly convoluted tale of a dystopian future, is so complicated it made my head hurt. Also it sort of ignores how easy it is becoming to get morning after pills and the likelihood that post Trump America will keep making progress toward the left. Yes Roe is under threat due to the right out strategizing the left and being willing to sacrifice norms to get their way, but norms have a way of springing back. Maybe sooner than we think.
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@Ray Did you read the part where this future also includes bans on so-called "abortifacient" medications, which is a medically-inaccurate but unfortunately common description of morning after pills? Access to almost any reliable birth control method is under threat as long as anti-choice laws are being pushed and anti-choice judges are packed onto courts in an effort to trash modern reproductive rights.
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@Bryan No Bryan, this was so dense and hard to follow I just started skimming after about the second paragraph. Yes I suppose in 20 years anything is possible, but I live in NY and have recently spent a few weeks in California two places that culturally are still moving leftward. Yes, when I go to to Texas I feel sorry for the poor devils who are stuck there, but I think it is more likely they will be liberated by 2040 than enslaved.
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Sad! But quite likely to be true!
I wish everyone who thought that the 2016 candidates were equally bad would read this, repent, and vote next time.
My concern is yet another. This supreme court could even accept personhood making it impossible to get an abortion resulting in a large number of women who try to get it illegally and die. Note that the Supreme court has the ability to make abortion illegal even in blue states.
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You know what this sounds like? The Handmaid Tales and taking 5 huge steps backwards in the rights of women. And even though it's suppose to be from the future, some of these things are already happening in deeply republican and conservative states.
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