Slow Boring

Share this post

Pro-life austerity: good luck with that

www.slowboring.com

Pro-life austerity: good luck with that

Waiting on a Republican family policy agenda? Don’t hold your breath

Phoebe Maltz Bovy
Writes Close-reading the reruns with Phoebe Maltz Bovy  · Subscribe
Jul 12, 2022
105
485
Share this post

Pro-life austerity: good luck with that

www.slowboring.com

Phoebe Maltz Bovy is the author of "The Perils of 'Privilege.'" She has a newsletter, Close-reading the reruns, and is co-host of the Feminine Chaos podcast.

In the New York Times, conservative columnist Ross Douthat reminds us that the Court overturning Roe v. Wade did not make abortion illegal in the United States, but merely opened up the legal possibility of states doing so: “While the pro-life movement has won the right to legislate against abortion, it has not yet proven that it can do so in a way that can command durable majority support.”

Douthat warns against a post-Roe landscape that’s pro-life for fetuses but not babies or their mothers:

You can imagine a future in which anti-abortion laws are permanently linked to a punitive and stingy politics, in which women in difficulties can face police scrutiny for a suspicious miscarriage but receive little in the way of prenatal guidance or postnatal support.

For Douthat, this outcome would be a problem. For those who would prefer for…

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Slow Boring to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
A guest post by
Phoebe Maltz Bovy
Another 2004-era blogger giving it a go
Subscribe to Phoebe
© 2023 Matthew Yglesias
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing