Roe Backlash: Just Getting Warmed Up

Created
Tue, 19/12/2023 - 01:00
Updated
Tue, 19/12/2023 - 01:00
“Don’t just vote. Run.” “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do,” Jesus said from the cross. American women like Allie Phillips, 28, will be less forgiving of politicians who know not what they do and those who do know and don’t care. Remember, first they come for the women. In mid-October, the Guardian reported on Phillips’ confrontation early this year with her nonviable pregnancy and Tennessee’s abortion ban. Allie Phillips thinks of herself as the ordinary neighbor nextdoor. She shops at the Walmart clearance rack. She posts TikTok videos of herself and her six-year-old daughter, Adalie, singing along to Taylor Swift and dancing the Wednesday Addams dance. Up until recently, the most political thing she’d ever done was vote, and only in presidential elections. That was then. This is now. Normally I peruse a lot of headlines before something grabs my attention, but this story via a rural organizing list did that first thing this morning. You need to see this story from Kathie C. Reilly at Elle: Allie Phillips cried into the camera. Her face mask was pushed down around her chin, and tears streamed from her big blue eyes. It was March 7, 2023, and she was speaking to her more than 330,000 TikTok followers from an abortion clinic thousands of miles away from her home state of Tennessee. “I didn’t expect to have this update,” Phillips said into the camera, barely able to get out the words. Two weeks earlier, at 19 weeks pregnant, doctors discovered…