Roy Morrison for BuzzFlash: Use Non-Violent Rebellion to Force Repeal of Grotesque Texas Abortion Law
We must engage in civil-disobedience against all efforts to control a woman’s body (Debra Sweet)
September 5, 2021
By Roy Morrison
What’ s happening in the United States, to all of us, is not just about the new Texas abortion ban, Texas SB8, enforced by vigilante bounty hunting.
In Texas, and soon in many Republican-controlled states, it will be fine to shred any number of constitutional rights to life liberty and pursuit of happiness that a legislature finds objectionable and allow “citizen” bounty hunters to enforce the law through pursuing bounty hunting for profit. It this sounds like a return to the Wild West and Confederacy, it is.
The Supreme Court has condoned this assault on freedom and the rule of law. This is the latest case of the Court’s dismantling of fundamental freedoms like voting rights. Texas and many states are passing laws in response to the preposterous big lie that the election was stolen from Trump, and it is likely the Supreme Court will uphold them as “state rights.”
The context of Texas SB8 is not simply a war of old men against women’s freedom. It’s part of a multifaceted assault upon a functional American democracy.
Next, can be laws making the United States a Christian nation; or removing all restrictions on firearms; or effectually banning votes for Democratic candidates all enforced by private suits.
Truth no longer matters. I watched President Biden live at Dover Air Force Base as the bodies of the 13 soldiers slain at the airport in Kabul returned home. That did not stop the internet from being aflame with claims that Biden was not there. Democracy is under assault by a right-wing Supreme Court and unfounded conspiracy theories, creating a volatile synergy.
As the Delta variant of Covid-19 virus kills 1,500 Americans a week, almost all unvaccinated, for millions the remarkably effective vaccine is viewed as a greater threat than Covid, and common sense mask wearing a violation of personal freedom. Freedom now means taking horse and cow wormer doses of ivermectin, the latest faux cure following upon hydroxychloroquine.
Non-violent direct action is the strongest and clearest response to the exercise of illegitimate authority. This was true for the integration of lunch counters to stop legal segregation, for worker’s rights to organize, for stopping detonating atomic bombs in Nevada, and now for stopping Texas laws trampling on women’s control of their own bodies.
As a member of the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance, opposing the imposition of the Seabrook nuclear project on the people of the NH Seacoast, I was part of one small example of the power of collective resistance to illegitimate authority. Following a series of large non-violent actions in the late 1980s, five Clamshell organizers were arrested and charged with a felony, “criminal liability for the conduct of others.”
I was one of the five. The intention was to single out select organizers to intimidate further action. My lawyer, leader of the ACLU legal team in NH, advised me to surrender to the cops who charged and released me to await trial. The next weekend there was a large demonstration on friendly private land across the road from the plant. I showed up and discovered a thousand or so people were all proudly wearing buttons that said “Clamshell Organizer.” It was quickly clear that we would not be intimidated. They could jail five people, but not a thousand.
Similarly, if thousands of people stand up for women’s rights in Texas it’s likely that faced with mass resistance the courts and politicians after a few show trials, they will realize they face the choice to back off or pack their courts with thousands of bogus lawsuits to violate women’s rights and lose elections. Defendants will be doctors, nurses, health care organizations, uber drivers, friends , families, defenders of constitutional rights by the thousands and thousands. Let the will and non-violent protest of the people prevail.
We, of course, cannot judge how far the American Taliban will go to wage their war against democracy and against women. It is, however, a fight worth waging. Non-violent resistance will change the predictable conduct of repression as usual. If we do not stand up collectively, there is no limit to the authoritarian paths they are willing to travel
Roy Morrison builds solar farms (www.SunPartnersSolar.com). His latest book forthcoming is The New Green Republic.
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