In the early 1980s, I toyed with the idea of a novel about a future where the United States was no longer united. Part of the country had become a theocratic dictatorship, based on the 17th-century religious principles and jurisprudence of the New England region. I set this novel in and around Harvard University—an institution known as liberal in the 1980s, but which had begun three centuries earlier as a training institution for Puritan clergy.
In that fictional Gilead theocracy, women had very few rights, as they did in 17th-century New England. There was selective shopping in the Bible, and that selection was also interpreted literally. Following the reproductive practices of the Bible book of Genesis—particularly those of Jacob’s family—the wives of high-ranking patriarchs could have female slaves or maidservants, and those wives could instruct their husbands to father children with those handmaids. They could then appropriate those children.
I finally finished that novel and The Handmaid’s Tale mentioned, but I stopped writing it several times because I thought the story was too far-fetched. Stupid of me. Theocratic dictatorships are not a thing of the distant past. Today we also have a few. So why couldn’t the US become one too?
Reproductive Health
For example, it is now mid-2022 and a draft opinion from the United States Supreme Court has just leaked that overturns a 50-year-old law on the grounds that abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution and is not “deep-rooted” in American ‘history and tradition’. That’s right. The US Constitution says nothing about women’s reproductive health. But the original document doesn’t talk about women at all.
Women were deliberately kept out of the story. Although one of the slogans of the American Revolutionary War of 1776 was “no tax without representation” and ruling with the consent of the governed was also seen as a good thing, women were not represented or governed with their consent—only indirectly, through their fathers or husbands. Women could not give or refuse permission, because they were not allowed to vote. It stayed that way until 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment was passed, which was opposed by much because it was against the original constitution. And it was.
In American law, women have been non-persons for much longer than individuals. If we are going to undermine established laws with the motivations of Judge Samuel Alito, can we also abolish the right to vote for women?
Reproductive rights are at the center of the recent uproar, but only one side of the coin is highlighted: the right to refrain from bearing a child. The other side of the coin is the power of the state to prevent you from bearing a child. The 1927 Supreme Court ruling in the Buck vs. Bell argued that the state could sterilize people without their consent.
While that decision was overturned by subsequent cases and laws permitting mass sterilization by states have been repealed, Buck vs. Bell still in the books. This kind of eugenic thinking was once considered “progressive” and some 70,000 forced sterilizations have been performed in the United States—both men and women, but mostly women. So it’s a “deep-rooted” tradition that women’s reproductive organs don’t belong to the women who have them. They belong exclusively to the state.
Religious beliefs
Hold on, you will say. It’s not about organs, it’s about babies. That raises questions. Is an acorn an oak tree? Is an egg a chicken? When does a fertilized human egg become a complete human or person? ‘Our’ traditions – let’s say those of the ancient Greeks, the Romans, the first Christians – were also not very good at dealing with this subject. At ‘fertilization’? At ‘heartbeat’? When ‘feeling alive’? The hard line of today’s anti-abortion activists is ‘at conception’, which should be the moment when a clump of cells becomes ‘animated’. But such a judgment rests on a religious belief, namely, belief in a soul. Not everyone believes in that. Still, it seems that everyone is now at risk of being subject to laws created by those who believe in them. What is a sin in certain religious circles is made a crime for everyone.
Let’s bring in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. It states: “Congress shall not pass any law pertaining to the establishment of a religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or restricts freedom of speech or of the press; or restrict the right of the people to hold peaceful gatherings, and to make requests to the government for compensation for grievances.” The drafters of the Constitution, well aware of the murderous wars of faith that had torn Europe apart since the rise of Protestantism, wanted above all to avoid that deadly trap. There was to be no state religion, but the state was also not allowed to prevent anyone from practicing the faith of his or her choice.
It should be simple: if you believe in ‘spirit’ at conception, you should not have an abortion, because if you do, you are committing a sin, within your faith. If you don’t believe that, you shouldn’t – according to the constitution – be bound by the religious beliefs of others. However, if Judge Alito’s justification were to become the new established law, it looks like the United States is well on its way to establishing a state religion. The state of Massachusetts had an official religion in the 17th century. Its adherents, the Puritans, hanged Quakers.
Witch
Judge Alito’s justifications appear to be based on the US Constitution. In reality, it relies on English jurisprudence from the 17th century, a time when the belief in witchcraft claimed the lives of many innocent people. The Salem witch trials were trials—with judges and juries—but they allowed for “spiritual evidence,” based on the belief that a witch could send her doppelganger or “ghost” out to wreak havoc. So even if you were asleep and had many witnesses to it, but someone claimed you had done shady things to a cow miles away, you were guilty of witchcraft. There was no way you could prove otherwise.
Likewise, it will be very difficult to disprove a false accusation of abortion. The mere fact of a miscarriage, or an accusation by a rejected partner, can make you a murderer. Accusations of revenge and malice will be the order of the day, as will the witchcraft arraignments of 500 years ago.
If Judge Alito wants you to be governed by the laws of the 17th century, I’d take a closer look at that century. Is that the time you want to live in?
Writer Margaret Atwood won many literary awards, including the Man Booker Prize in 2000 for The Blind Assassin and in 2019 for The Willsthe sequel to her famous The Handmaid’s Tale from 1985.
Translation by Leo Reijnen