The GOP’s abortion bans are what RELIGIOUS FASCISM looks like

Since Roe was overturned GOP has gone full religious supremacy

This Saturday marks the one year anniversary of the GOP controlled United States Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. From there, we saw more than 14 Republican states ban abortion—even in the case of rape and incest. These bans are rightfully described as depriving women of reproductive freedom and as a violation of international human rights law.

However, there is something more at play. These bans are another effort by the GOP to impose fascism—but this time it’s religious fascism.  I can’t emphasize enough that we must call out the religious component to the GOP’s efforts because it will help everyone understand that this is not just a movement to ban abortion. Rather, today’s GOP is academically speaking a “Christian nationalist” movement that not only wants to end reproductive freedom, but ban access to birth control, strip the LGBTQ+ community of civil rights, ban books that they religiously object to, etc.

I’m not saying that the GOP’s actions are grounded in the actual tenets of Christianity-just as a Muslim, I reject the Taliban’s perversion of my faith. But “Christian nationalism” is a political movement that is inseparable from white nationalism as experts note. It’s a belief that the United States was founded as a white, Christian nation. It also relies on the core belief that there should be no wall between church and state, rather that our laws should be based on right-wing, extreme interpretations of the Christian faith. This is today’s GOP.

Republican officials are not even attempting to hide their religious agenda. For example, when Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an abortion ban in August 2022, he declared: “I promised Oklahomans that as governor I would sign every piece of pro-life legislation,” adding, “From the moment life begins at conception is when we have a responsibility as human beings to do everything we can to protect that baby’s life.”

“Life at conception” is a religious belief, not one grounded in science as medical experts have explained. Yet, Stitt and countless other Republicans like him make no qualms about imposing that religious belief as law upon all the people of their state.

This religious fascist movement does not care what a majority of Americans believe. For example, a new Gallup poll finds that a record-high 69% Americans say abortion should generally be legal in the first three months of pregnancy.  

Despite that level of support, the GOP are all too happy to ban abortion since that is supported by approximately three-quarters of white evangelical Protestants, the religious faith group that dominates the GOP. These abortion bans are more of the Republican party’s tyranny of the minority.

In fact, Mike Pence stated that out loud in April when asked about opinion polls showing a majority of American’s oppose abortion bans. Being the religious zealot he is, Pence declared, that banning abortion is “more important than politics,” adding, “I really believe it’s the calling of our time.” In other words, he and millions of others like him in GOP are going to force their religious beliefs down our throats as law despite what most Americans believe.  

That explains why since last June’s Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overutning Roe, Republicans across the nation have implemented abortion bans that begin at conception. The real-world impact is in these states, a woman’s uterus at the time of conception effectively becomes the property of the state.

And in states such as Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma—along with 10 others—there is not even an exception for rape or incest. That means millions of women living in these states who are reaped are forced to carry the rapist’s fetus to term. That is barbarism. Period.

Take a step back for a moment. If these Republicans under the guise of their “pro-life” religious beliefs have no problem forcing a teenager girl who has been raped to carry the embryo of the fetus to term, there is no bottom to the cruelty and depravity they are capable of. 

But this is not just about the extreme example of forcing a raped teenager or woman to carry a fetus. This is about women losing the freedom to decide what is best for her own life.  

Overall, twenty-five million women of childbearing age now live in states where the law makes abortions harder to get than they were before Roe was overturned. Even in GOP states like Georgia and Ron DeSantis’s Florida where he recently signed a six-week abortion ban, most women don’t even know they are pregnant at that time. In addition, at six weeks into pregnancy, an embryo is the size of a grain of rice. Yet these Republicans are saying that a clump of cells the size of grain of rice has more rights than a teenage girl or woman.

Even in states where the GOP allows abortion when the life of the woman was risk, as the Kaiser foundation found, “In practice, health and life exceptions to bans have often proven to be unworkable, except in the most extreme circumstances, and have sometimes prevented physicians from practicing evidence-based medicine.”

The result is women who pre-Dobbs could have simply had an abortion because of health risks, are now forced to carry the fetus until they are near death because doctors fear losing their medical license or being imprisoned for performing an abortion in certain states.

For example, in Tennessee, Mayron Hollis discovered she was pregnant in spring 2022.  But her doctor informed her that the pregnancy could be fatal to both her and her fetus. Hollis decided to seek an abortion. However, after Tennessee’s abortion ban took effect on Aug. 25, Hollis learned her abortion had been canceled. She was forced by GOP law to carry the fetus. Then, 25 weeks into her forced pregnancy, Hollis began bleeding uncontrollably, lapsing in and out of consciousness. Her daughter Elayna was born 14 weeks premature and still struggles with an array of health problems. Hollis required a hysterectomy.

By forcing women to carry a fetus to term, the GOP knows they are literally killing woman. I say that because the U.S. rate for women dying during pregnancy in 2021 was 32.9 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births--which is more than ten times the estimated rates of some other high income countries, including Australia, Austria, Japan and Spain.  For Black women—as the CDC has detailed—it’s far more deadly: "Black women are three times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than White women.”

Now you understand why the United Nations Human Rights Council appointed expert recently wrote that these abortion bans not only “puts millions of women and girls at serious risk,” but they are “violations of International Human Rights Law.” The UN human rights expert added, “Women and girls in disadvantaged situations are disproportionately affected by these bans.”

But if the GOP religious fascists have their way, abortion will be banned nationwide. Mike Pence—now a 2024 presidential candidate—was jubilant after Roe was overturned declaring, “Now that Roe v. Wade has been consigned to the ash heap of history, a new arena in the cause of life has emerged, and it is incumbent on all who cherish the sanctity of life to resolve that we will take the defense of the unborn and the support for women in crisis pregnancy centers to every state in America.”

He has pledged if elected to sign a federal abortion ban and he seeks to a total ban on abortion medication, stating in April: “I’d like to see this medication off the market to protect the unborn.”

Pence’s view is the mainstream GOP position. Just look at the statements of Republican lawmakers such as Arkansas Republican Sen. Jason Rapert who sponsored that state’s extreme abortion ban at the time it passed: “We must abolish abortion in this nation just as we abolished slavery in the 19th century – all lives matter.” 

Forcing your religious beliefs upon as by law is not only a violation of the First Amendment, it’s what religious fascism looks like. It’s what today’s GOP looks like-and we must call it out for what it is.

---