DIGITAL Magazine ALL NEWAL DIGIT MAGAZINE The Nation’s new Digital Magazine format offers: CLICK HERE -The Page-turning TO VIEW IN THE experience of a print magazine RENHANCEDEADER FoRMAt PLUS: -Live Web Links -Multimedia Access DECEMBER 16/23, 2019 SPECIAL ISSUE THE NEW POLITICS OF THE SUPREMEABORTION COURT WON’T PROTECT ABORTION ACCESS ANYMORE. BUT THOUSANDS OF ACTIVISTS WILL. AMY LITTLEFIELD DANI MCCLAIN ILYSE HOGUE MOIRA DONEGAN ZOË CARPENTER JOAN WALSH CYNTHIA GREENLEE KATHA POLLITT THENATION.COM BASEBALL’S LABOR CRISIS KELLY CANDAELE AND PETER DREIER TAYLOR SWIFT, INC. 2 The Nation. OLIVIA HORN OCTOBER 21, 2019 IT’S A BIRD, IT’S A PLANE, Letters IT’S…CORY @thenation.com BOOKER? He’s been running hard his whole life. What’s holding him back now? GENE SEYMOUR THENATION.COM Diversity comes in all flavors! We’ve got Off Base the pockets of the owners or it goes to Peppermint, Caramelized, the players on the field whom the fans or Divine Dark Chocolate. Come on, folks—you can do much better than this. I’m referring to the pay to see. The average ballplayer article “Moneyball Bites Back,” by spends only four years in the major Nutty Steph’s wants to Kelly Candaele and Peter Dreier leagues, and the median annual salary raise $100,000 for Planned [October 21]. I made it to the sec- is $1.5 million, as we pointed out. Parenthood of Northern tion that reveals that the players (the While it might be hard for “regular” people to sympathize with them, the oppressed) were averaging a salary New England with 100,000 attitude of Mr. Garavel is exactly the of $4.5 million in 2018, after which I vulvas, naturally made one that team owners would like the struggled to keep reading about their fans to have. with the best chocolate “plight.” I had to pinch myself again Professional baseball is a game, but available to humankind. You and again to remind myself that I was it is also a business. The players de- reading not Forbes but The Nation, the support reproductive serve every penny they can make over historical vanguard of the nonelite healthcare and sexuality the course of their short careers, and underclasses. fans should support them when the education with every one There is a shocking, widening owners attempt to keep their salaries you buy. Complete with income gap in this country fueled by artificially low. Kelly Candaele an educational collectors the corporate sector, and the sporting los angeles card inside, these beautiful industry is no exception. Come on, Peter Dreier Nation! I am thoroughly disappointed. los angeles confections are great for Robert Garavel the office, for your friends, brookfield, conn. “Can’t” vs. “Won’t” at baby showers, for women, Kelly Candaele and I need to comment on Calvin Trillin’s men, girls, and all people. Peter Dreier Reply “Deadline Poet” in the Novem- ber 11/18 issue. I disagree with his use We agree with Mr. Garavel that “the Help Nutty Steph’s reach of the word “can’t” in the final sen- sporting industry is no exception” tence. The sentence—“He can’t dis- its goal of selling 100,000 when it comes to corporate owners tinguish right from wrong”—implies delicious vulvas for $100,000 using all of their power to skew the an inability, something larger than the to Planned Parenthood of economics of professional sports—in person, rendering him unable, as if he this case, baseball—to their advan- Northern New England. were a mere victim of circumstances. tage. Our article did not argue that Donald Trump is not a victim baseball players were “oppressed”; of circumstances, someone simply we did not use that word. But we did unable to decide. He possesses the want to help readers of The Nation same ability to use his free will as become more sophisticated observers most humans, whereas “will” means of the game. an exercise of consciousness. So the Many fans—perhaps Mr. Garavel last sentence should read, “He won’t is one of them—become confused or distinguish right from wrong.” angry when professional athletes go Sandra Kruize on strike to defend their interests, and tukwila, wash. those fans respond with a knee-jerk “plague o’ both your houses” attitude. Correction We wanted to show why, in the con- In Seyla Benhabib’s “High Liberal- text of baseball, these work stoppages ism” [November 11/18], John Rawls or lockouts have taken place and why is described as having attended a another one might be forthcoming. parochial school in Baltimore. In RabbleRouser.net The baseball industry is no different fact, the school he attended was from any other when it comes to who in Connecticut. gets what. Either the money goes into [email protected] UPFRONT 4 By the Numbers: Access to abortion; 8 Comix The Nation. Nation: Peter Kuper since 1865 3 A New Politics of Abortion Emily Douglas 4 The Hong Kong Bill Isn’t Radical Enough Tobita Chow and Jake Werner A New Politics of Abortion 5 The Score Bryce Covert COLUMNS merica is a country that telegraphs profoundly conflicting 6 Subject to Debate Personhood Is ideas of what life as a woman should be. There are five Punishment female candidates for president. Women are fully inte- Katha Pollitt 8 Deadline Poet grated into the paid labor force: Almost half of workers are Where Billionaires women. Seventy percent of mothers with children work outside the home; Stand on the A Presidency the vast majority working full-time. Across income Calvin Trillin groups, but especially among low-income families, bald-faced lies. They won because they were un- the wages women earn increasingly represent half— afraid—they didn’t avoid the issue—and because Features or more—of what their families live on. America of local on-the-ground organizing that had their The Fight for depends on women’s labor, paid and unpaid, and backs. That organizing isn’t only in Virginia, and Reproductive Freedom expects women to dream big, just as men do. it isn’t only about elections. A mass, mobilized With Roe v. Wade in And yet in 2019 alone, state after state has passed movement for abortion access has taken root across conservatives’ crosshairs, abortion rights activists, laws that, if enforced, would completely undermine the country, inspiring a new willingness among prosecutors, and politicians the United States’ notion of itself as a country that Democrats in office to stand up for abortion rights. are gathering force embraces gender equality. These laws ban abortion, As Amy Little field notes in this issue, in 2018 more in the courts, states, and now they’re banning it as early as six weeks, measures—80 in total—were enacted to expand and streets. before many women even know they’re reproductive health access than to re- 10 The Movement for Abortion Access Is Here pregnant. Alabama has banned abortion strict it. That number has been steadily Amy Littlefield • 14 How EDITORIAL altogether, with only the narrowest ex- increasing since 2012. This year, more to Undo Trump’s Damage ceptions. So far all these laws have been abortion protections were passed than Ilyse Hogue • 16 The Bill blocked by federal judges, but they will ever before. These include measures that Pusher Zoë Carpenter • work their way up to the Supreme Court, substantially expand access to abortion, 21 Meet the Prosecutors Resisting New Abortion where an anti-choice majority now holds as in Maine and Illinois, where it’s now Bans Cynthia Greenlee • sway. Building on decades of attacks on covered by Medicaid, and in New York, 24 When the Clinics Close access to legal abortion—which, after Roe which finally decriminalized abortion Dani McClain • 28 The New v. Wade legalized abortion nationwide in and expanded access to it throughout Culture of Abortion Moira Donegan • 30 Stand and 1973, became an organizing principle pregnancy. These measures are of crucial Fight Joan Walsh of the newly politicized evangelical right—these importance not just for what they do but also for efforts have already made it impossible for many what they symbolize: The movement demanding Books & providers to practice, for clinics to stay open, and them is breaking through. the Arts for women to afford to pay for the procedure, In this issue we take a measure of this split reality: 35 The Unfinished even in states that haven’t imposed outright bans. the mortal threat to Roe unfolding in states like Ala- Revolution Conservatives continue to fight tirelessly to shame bama, Georgia, and Ohio, and the furious backlash Michael Kazin those who seek abortions and to block access to on the left, which has given rise to hundreds of local 40 From Diary (poem) contraception, medically accurate sexuality educa- and regional efforts to support those who need abor- Marisa Crawford tion, and sexually transmitted infection testing and tion care and has thrust the demand for abortion 41 The Rest of Us treatment. In that sense, on the right, there is no access to the center of progressive politics. Namwali Serpell new politics of abortion. Instead, Republicans have Women and men organize their lives around the 44 Holy Terrain simply run out of ways to fire up their base without belief that they are able to make choices—choices Julyssa Lopez banning abortion completely, and we’re getting as varied and unique as those making them—about close to the endgame. the profound and, often, life-altering matters of VOLUME 309, NUMBER 15, But that’s not the whole story. As Joan Walsh whether and when to be pregnant and whether DECEMBER 16/23, 2019 writes in this issue, when she reported on the and when to have children.