Comment: Controlling who can travel or talk about abortion brings us back to our dark past

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This illiberal regime — which restricts freedom of movement and speech and requires intense surveillance and policing — is a key component of anti-abortionists’ vision of an abortion-free society. And while activists in the movement may rely on the language of freedom and rights, within weeks of the Dobbs decision, the society they were building was made clear that it was incompatible with liberal democracy.

Historically, this is not surprising. Efforts to limit rights and control the basic functions of citizenship are impossible to contain within state borders. Even before people living in different states were connected by telecommunications technology, the nation was held together by interstate commerce, travel, and mail.

Free movement and communication meant that illiberalism at the state level inevitably led to illiberalism at the federal level, from claiming free states to enforcing slave-state laws in the 1850s to imposing laws restricting the flow of information about birth control. 1870s.

The illiberalism of Dobbs’ decision must be seen as sufficient from laws that deprive women of their fundamental right to reproductive autonomy. But unlike previous illiberal regimes in the US, the restrictions are not limited to the primary targets of these restrictions.

In the past few weeks, states have proposed, passed, or implemented a variety of restrictions that go beyond the doctor’s office: banning mail-order drugs, criminalizing sharing information about abortion, banning librarians from using the word “abortion.” In conversation with customers.

Those examples suggest that the abortion ban affects more than doctors and pregnant women. Not only did it impose new restrictions on speech, travel, and mail, but in some states they were informally removed for citizens who help enforce abortion bans.

Civil servants and private citizens are not the only ones being drafted into these anti-abortion regimes. Corporations are also now navigating the new landscape, sometimes to new state laws.

As Laura Weiss of The New Republic reports, drugstore giant CVS has implemented a policy requiring pharmacists in “high-risk countries” to question “women of childbearing potential” who are prescribed drugs that can end pregnancy. They did not intend to have an abortion. If they do not prove to the pharmacist’s satisfaction that the medication is prescribed for another purpose, their prescription may be refused. Meanwhile, Google has promised to delete location data for users who visit abortion clinics, which requires the tech company to closely monitor the confidential location data it collects from users.

None of this was unexpected. In fact, the history of reproductive restrictions suggests that such a general societal approach was necessary for the state to exercise control over Americans’ reproductive lives. In the 19th century, as states enacted more restrictions on contraception and abortion, lawmakers began expanding their reach beyond condoms, diaphragms, and abortion.

The Comstock Acts, a federal law enacted in the 1870s and expanded in the first half of the 20th century, made not only illegal contraception illegal, but documents containing information to prevent pregnancy. Such laws led to raids on bookstores and interference with postal services. Behind the government’s right to control Americans’ reproductive choices and information, rights to privacy and free expression are considered secondary rights.

For more than a century, Americans have understood that restricting reproductive choice entails restricting other fundamental freedoms.

In 2022, it’s worth bringing up another historic precedent that has been repeatedly invoked as abortion bans escalate: the Fugitive Slave Act. In the year The Act, passed in 1850, ensured that slavery was not a regional issue but was applicable throughout the United States. Nor was the Fugitive Slave Law the only evidence that slavery could not be contained in states that allowed slavery.

In the year In the mid-1830s, Congress was overwhelmed with petitions to abolish slavery, so it created the gag law: any petition on the subject would be immediately served. As abolitionists and abolitionists realized at the time, slavery undermined the liberties of every American by removing the constitutional guarantee that citizens had the right to petition the government for redress.

Anti-abortionists argued that Dobbs would do nothing more than return the issue of abortion to the states. But proposed legislation in the first few weeks after the decision shows that reproductive rights will no longer be a territorial issue limited to red and purple states where Republican lawmakers have stripped residents of their reproductive rights.

Anti-abortion laws plunge the entire nation into illiberalism, undermining not only reproductive rights but the entire project of liberal democracy.

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