Abortion & Snitch Culture
The plan for abortion ban enforcement? People ratting each other out.
Whenever I write about the latest anti-choice bill and how it targets women—whether it’s legislation that classifies helping a teenager get an out-of-state abortion as ‘human trafficking’, or an abortion ban that would prosecute women who ‘cause’ their miscarriages—one question comes up again and again: How would law enforcement possibly know?
How could the cops find out that you drove your niece out-of-state for abortion care? It’s not like they’ll be checking at the border. How would prosecutors come to the conclusion that you’re at fault for your pregnancy ending? Or that you illegally used abortion medication? There’s only so much surveillance they can do!
The answer is snitch culture. Conservative lawmakers, zealous prosecutors and cops don’t plan on looking for people who break abortion laws—because they’re counting on Americans turning each other in.
There’s a reason that Texas passed ‘bounty hunter’ laws, which give citizens a $10,000 reward for successfully suing anyone who violates abortion bans—and why so many other states are following suit. The sad truth is that Republicans probably didn’t even need to attach a financial incentive to their legislation because people enjoy tattling. That’s especially true when it comes to an issue like abortion, hyper-charged with misogyny, racism, classism and ever-devolving conservative rhetoric.
These laws embolden the worst kind of people and the lowest type of behavior. They give the country’s worst busybodies and states’ most bored and bitter citizens the go-ahead to make other people’s lives miserable.
Even worse, conservatives are encouraging people to betray those closest to them. Anti-choice legislators and activists know that for every friend or family member willing to support a woman through an abortion, there’s someone in her life—an abusive ex-boyfriend, an estranged mother-in-law—eager to use the power of the state to punish her or anyone who helps her.
Worst of all, the strategy is already working. Police who arrested a Nebraska teen for an illegal abortion, for example, were operating off of a tip by one of her ‘friends’. A woman in Texas who was arrested and charged with murder for allegedly inducing an abortion was turned in by the hospital she went to for treatment.
Conservatives are relying on Americans’ appetite for punishment to enforce a cruel and divisive agenda—hoping that we’ll prioritize adherence to the state over the safety and health of our own communities.
That’s what makes this all so cruel: The people who claim to stand for ‘family values’ are depending entirely on our willingness to turn on each other. They’re incentivizing the breakdown of family and community trust, and codifying betrayal. It’s a way to make us feel disconnected from each other, and to make women feel as if they aren’t safe anywhere or with anyone. It’s downright terroristic.
We know the individual harm and suffering that abortion bans are causing—more and more stories are shared every day. The damage done to the faith we have in each other, however, will be much harder to gauge.
Anyone who thinks this isn’t a big deal should read up on the tremendous damage the Stasi caused to East German society.
This was the culture encouraged in the Ceausescu regime in Romania where abortions were banned. Civil society was poisoned for a few generations. Women put their babies in orphanages where they were neglected and became irrevocably developmentally delayed.