American women have lost the right to control their own health care, and in some cases, whether they live or die. How did that happen in the "Land of the Free"? Donald Watkins, longtime Alabama attorney and civil-rights advocate, points to MAGA voters, who determined that Donald Trump and his appointees on the U.S. Supreme Court have the moral authority to make such decisions -- despite Trump's documented history of treating women, including his own daughter, like objects, and the Supreme Court is riddled with scandal, often of the right-wing variety.
Under the headline "Anatomy of the American Taliban's Assault on Women," Watkins describes how shortsighted politics, shallow religion, and abusive use of power can combine to rob minorities -- and women certainly qualify as a minority -- of fundamental rights. Writes Watkins:
If you want to understand how the American Taliban assaults women's rights in the United States, it is clearly depicted in an article this week, and an accompanying chart, at demcastusa.com.
The chart accompanies an excellent August 20, 2023, online article at Demcastusa.com that explains, in detail, how the U.S. Supreme Court has been weaponized against reproductive rights for women.
The American Taliban has nested within the MAGA wing of the Republican Party and has hijacked the nation's Supreme Court. The chart shows how this was done.
So that you know, I am a pro-choice Independent voter. I believe in a woman's right to determine what is best for her body and her health, in consultation with her family and physician.
Women never have controlled their own fate in the health-care environment, but Watkins says the problem has worsened considerably under what he calls "Taliban Rule in America":
American women have never dominated the health-care profession, whether as regulators, insurers, or health-care providers. Men have controlled and dominated every aspect of the health-care profession since the colonists landed in America. Now, the American Taliban is waging a full-scale war on the bodies of women and girls of childbearing age. This is their version of Sharia law.
American women have never been able to control what men can and cannot do with their bodies or their reproductive organs. Likewise, women have never been able to force a man to procreate life under any set of circumstances.
An American man can avail himself of whatever health care he wants for his body. He can increase his testosterone levels, or not. He can fix his erectile dysfunction, or not. He can enhance the performance of his reproductive organs, or not. Above all, a man's penis and testicles are off limits for any form of government control.
Women, on the other hand, have a long and well-documented history of being subjected to complete male domination and control over their bodies. For example, married men in America enjoyed the legal right to rape and beat women for more than two hundred years.
The rape of a black female by any white male was tolerated by American society and law-enforcement officials, without legal consequences for the rapist, from 1612 until the passage of the Civil rights Act of 1964.
As often is the case with any injustice, the burden tends to fall hardest on those of limited means. Writes Watkins:
Poor women in state prisons and mental facilities were subjected to forced sterilizations without their consent. These eugenics programs were sanctioned by state public-health officials and were only terminated when two brave Alabama federal judges -- Frank M. Johnson, Jr. (Montgomery) and Virgil Pittman (Mobile) -- issued court orders to stop this barbaric practice in the early 1970s. Today's right-wing, Taliban-controlled U.S. Supreme Court would allow the resumption of these forced eugenics programs in a heartbeat.
As recently as 2016, a bill to chemically castrate male sex offenders failed in the Alabama legislature because of this truism: A man's body, even when he is a serial rapist of women and children, is off limits to forced government medical procedures in the modern era.
In contrast, a woman's body in Alabama (and elsewhere in America) is, and always has been, fair game for control, domination, regulation, and legalized interference with the doctor-patient relationship. A woman's body is now subject to the same breeding protocols a man selects for his animals. For all practical purposes, men now dictate how, when, and under what circumstances women will be bred.
Where do abortion rights fall in the American Taliban's version of "women's rights"? Watkins tackles that question head-on;
This brings me to the controversial subject of abortions. Today, 26 states prohibit or severely limit the right of a pregnant woman or girl from getting an abortion, even if the pregnancy is the result of rape and incest or if the forced childbirth might kill the mother. These states have determined that a pregnant woman or young girl in this circumstance must trade her life for her baby's life, no matter how the baby was conceived.
The man who impregnates a woman or girl during an act of rape or incest gets to live, but the woman or girl might be forced to die. This is the harsh reality of the American Taliban's domestic version of Sharia law.
As the smoke clears from the "pro-life" rhetoric of the far-right, the message to pregnant American women and girls is clear -- angry white men (and their subservient female accomplices) are terrorizing you. They are controlling your bodies and what you can do with them. If you buck against their control, Taliban-dominated state law-enforcement agencies might indict you and your doctor, put both of you on trial for murder, and imprison you for many years.
As a nation, we saw this kind of state sponsored domestic terrorism against black Americans during the reign of state Sovereignty Commissions in southern states in the 1960s. State and local prosecutors used the full power of their offices to target, harass, and prosecute innocent blacks who sought equal protection under the law.
The paradigm of absolute male dominance and control over women's bodies will not change until white women get tired of being treated like second-class citizens, at best, and zoo animals, at worst. In overturning Roe v. Wade in June 2022, four Taliban men and one subservient woman on the U.S. Supreme Court pushed back medical progress for American women by at least 50 years.
Women, is the gift of a tennis bracelet for your birthday, or diamond earrings for Christmas, or a trip to the Super Bowl really worth allowing angry white men to treat you, your daughters, and granddaughters like animals?
Do women really want men like Donald Trump to control the most personal and private parts of their lives? Writes Watkins:
Remember, Donald Trump gave great gifts to the women in his life. However, Trump privately bragged about "grabbing [women] by the pussy." Trump even agreed on the Howard Stern radio show that his daughter Ivana was a "fine piece of ass."
Donald Trump said out loud what so many white men say and think about all women in private. Trump has never revered any woman -- not his maternal and paternal grandmothers, not his mother, not his sister, not his wives, not his daughters, and not his loyal female lawyers like Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, and Alina Habba.
In fact, Trump has completely abandoned co-defendants Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell in the aftermath of their RICO indictments in Georgia last week.
Yet, the American Taliban has made Donald Trump its top cleric.
Women, have you noticed that these angry white men are willing to give you almost everything, except equal rights under the law? They have never guaranteed you equal rights under the law. The American Taliban proudly defeated the ratification by states of the only Equal Rights Amendment (for women) that passed Congress.
For whatever reason, most white men in America have never been capable of recognizing, respecting, and honoring the inalienable rights of women to control their bodies and enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
