Now, the fight over abortion really begins
The Supreme Court’s apparent plan to overturn Roe v. Wade has been met with derision and outrage in much of the media’s coverage, reflecting, of course, how millions of Americans feel.
But there’s another side, representing the millions of people who have hoped and prayed for the day when the court might finally overturn a 1973 decision they regard as immoral and undemocratic.
Sheila Blasch is among those people.
I profiled Blasch three years ago, when, in those days before COVID -19 shuttered the building, she spent hours each week standing outside the Assembly Chamber in the Capitol, silently surrounded by signs and posters decrying abortion. Her perspective on the issue is shaped by the tragedy that in many respects defined her life. When Blasch was 18, her fami
ly’s car was stopped at a red light when a drunk driver slammed into it from the back, causing the station wagon to explode and kill her mother. Blasch spent most of the next two years in a burn recovery center.
Blasch, who is now 64, was opposed to abortion before the crash, but she also believes it gave her a unique perspective on the value of life. When she was in the burn unit, some may have believed that she was better off dead or that her future would be without meaning.
“We have people who want to tell others whose life is worth living, but I can tell you that for all I went through, my life has been worth living,” the Albany resident told me then in the Capitol. “We’re here for a reason. We’re created for a reason.”
When I reconnected with Blasch, who protests most days outside a Schenectady abortion clinic, to ask about the Supreme Court’s leaked draft decision, she was, of course, pleased by it — even as she worried that the leak might not accurately reflect the final decision expected to be released next month.
But, like many Americans on either side of the debate, Blasch was also bracing herself for what the decision might unleash, including the prospect of more anger and divisiveness in our politics and interactions. We are, in many ways, heading into uncharted territory, and it’s difficult to know what to expect.
While Blasch is opposed to abortion in all circumstances, polls show that’s a position held by a relatively small percentage of Americans — 19 percent, according to the most recent Gallup poll on the issue, which, like other surveys, also found that a majority opposed overturning Roe.
But abortion polling is often confusing and contradictory, reflecting, perhaps, the conflicting and complicated feelings that many Americans hold on the issue. Support for abortion falls sharply after the first trimester, and if there’s any sort of consensus to be found, polls suggest the comfortable spot for many Americans would be to keep abortion legal but under laws more restrictive than Roe has allowed.
That compromise position is largely absent from our polarized political debate, however. As David Leonhardt of The New York Times noted, the country immediately after a Roe overturn is likely to “split between blue states with greater access to abortion than most Americans favor and red states with substantially less access than most Americans favor.”
New York will be in the former category, of course, and it seems likely that the overturning of Roe, if it indeed happens, will boost the state’s Democrats. Put it this way: A vulnerable Kathy Hochul will benefit if she can make the campaign less about crime, the economy and taxes and more about the generally anti-abortion positions held by presumptive Republican nominee Lee Zeldin.
But it’s also possible Democrats will overplay their hand, as they are prone to do, with proposals that turn away moderates. An example is the plan by Attorney General Letitia James to pay for women who live where abortion is restricted to travel to New York for the procedure.
Swell idea, right? Just wait until, say, Texas decides to purchase assault weapons for New Yorkers stymied by the state’s anti-gun restrictions.
You can perhaps understand why Blasch feels some trepidation over what’s to come. But her commitment to her position won’t waver, she said, even if the overturning of Roe angers and energizes those who disagree.
“I’m going to live the truth to the best of my ability,” Blasch told me. “The child is innocent. It’s living and it’s growing.”
Millions of people see abortion from a different perspective, of course, emphasizing the right of women to control their own bodies and lives without government interference. And even if the court really does toss Roe, laws in New York won’t change unless and until those on Blasch’s side of the debate sway millions of hearts and minds.
That won’t happen anytime soon. But Blasch won’t stop trying.