The originality and ingenuity of the activist response to the runaway train Roberts court in overturning Roe v Wade has been both personally gratifying, as well as inspirational.

MSNBC reported tonight on the last remaining abortion clinic left in North Dakota. They have up until July 28th to shut down their operations. They are literally a 10 minute walk across a bridge over the Red River from Minnesota. They are continuing to offer services while they move the whole goddamn thing barely across the river, offering their clients safe and secure services in another state.

Another group is putting together the modern abortion version of the old library bookmobiles, they are creating mobile abortion vans that they can park just across the state border of an anti abortion states, and provide both pharmaceutical abortions as well as surgical abortions.

The GOP and the Roberts court have no idea of the can of worms they’ve just opened. Technology is there to be mastered, and these groups are mastering it. I have often said that the GOP anti-abortion con was exactly that, a con, used to get donations and turn voters out to the polls. The GOP is the dog who finally caught the car, and now it’s about to run over them.

But here’s the best short term solution I’ve heard of yet. Take a look at a map. There are Native American reservations spread all over the United States, and wouldn’t you know it, a lot of them are in plains and western and southwestern states. And as sovereign nations, they are exempt from US and state laws. They are autonomous.

And that’s the plan. Rush the facilities and personnel into the reservations to turn them into abortion safe havens. Neither the states nor the SCOTUS has any control over how they conduct their affairs.

And it’s a win-win situation for the tribes. Because most people who come in to have surgical abortions are going to be staying at least one night. Let Native Americans build hotels, restaurants, and convenience stores in close proximity to the clinics. These will generate guaranteed income into the Native American communities. Allowing them to improve their own standard of life on the reservation.

Think I’m kidding? Let me clue you in. In southern Wisconsin, just outside of Milwaukee, is the Ho-Chunk tribal lands. They could be on the Fortune 500 list with the revenue from their tribal casino. There are daily scheduled Metra trains that run from Union Station in Chicago up to Milwaukee, with Ho-Chunk Casino vans waiting to take the gamblers to the casinos.

Not every reservation has population centers that make casinos a viable option. But especially in rural, red states, they can provide a safe haven that is a helluva lot closer than having to cross state lines to get an abortion. And in red states that try to ban interstate travel for the purposes of obtaining an abortion? They’ve got you covered. After all, you aren’t crossing state lines, you’re crossing into Native American tribal lands.

Is it a perfect solution? Of course not. But we have no way of knowing how long this will stretch out before justice is restored. But let me remind you of one thing. In the 1950’s, it took the US army less than a week to set up a full service Mobile Army Surgical Hospital behind the lines to treat injured soldiers. This is 2022. We can do this if the will is there. And if we let the Native American communities get the benefit of the fruits of their labors. The clock is ticking.

 

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11 COMMENTS

  1. Brilliant proposal! Kudos to the genius who thought of it first, and more kudos to Murfster for passing it along. The big question, though: will the five SCOTUS wingnuts find some cockamamie way to block it? I’m not well enough informed on the legal details to hazard a guess one way or the other…

    • Without resorting to overturning native rights and impinging on interstate commerce laws (not to mention *creating* a law restricting a woman’s freedom to travel–I can’t see any of the “conservative” justices accepting that point, especially as their “rationale” for overturning Roe was that the Constitution did not contain a right to privacy), I don’t see the justices trying to block it.

    • SCOTUS has NO authority over sovereign tribes, nor tribal lands..This isn’t a pipeline, it’s self governance…

      • Reckon you didn’t hear their decision regarding states prosecuting non indians on reservations. It is a slippery slope and one more example of the white man f*cking the First Peoples up the a*s.

        I do believe protests need to occur in front of the s.c. and the “justices” homes. What the protesters need much more than signs are bags of fecal matter to throw at these pieces of s*it. You know, in exchange for stupid, shi**y decisions.

  2. I really appreciate this option, there are a couple of reservations here in Texas. I would hope they would be open to this. To be honest, resorting to this is pretty fucked up. You can cross the border into Mexico and get some of the abortion medications without a prescription.

    • Well, that doesn’t really help the women who live more than a couple of hours away from the Mexican border. Unlike the weird geography of Texas that “King of the Hill” displayed (for instance, when Peggy’s able to participate in a one-day “field trip” to Mexico, in which the class left school in the early morning, spent several hours in Mexico and were still able to get home before sunset), there are vast parts of Texas that, even driving at 70mph on an interstate, require 6 to 8 hours to get to Mexico. It’s fine if you live in Laredo or Brownsville or El Paso, but if you live in Amarillo or Texarkana, you’re looking at a serious trip. (Google Maps shows Amarillo to Juarez being at least 7 hours and Amarillo to Nuevo Laredo is at least 10 hours–one way. I’m guessing the routes are based on a 70-mph speed limit, which is fairly common for interstates but I don’t know for sure.)

      • Forgot to note that “King of the Hill” is set in the fictional town of Arlen (and its Heimlich County is equally fictitious) but creator Mike Judge said he based it on the Dallas-Fort Worth area but a lot of the geography tends to be more reasonable if the town’s in the middle of the state. But, that incident with Peggy and the class trip would only really work if Arlen were within an hour or so of the Mexican border (there are a couple of other episodes where the Mexican border seems to be really close to Arlen–when Hank skips out on voting because of Dubya’s weak handshake and when the guys drive to Mexico to get some of their favorite Alamo Beer; both incidents mean Arlen has to be not much more than 150-200 miles from the border).

        Yes, I think I’ve watched too many reruns of “King of the Hill.”

  3. You don’t even need surgical abortion clinics. Just open a pharmacy on native land where patients can meet with a doctor over telemedicine while an in-person technician assists the patient, instructs how to take the mifepristone/misoprostol medication and that is that.

  4. Hey Murf? Native Americans by and large don’t go in for abortion. Their teenage girls get raped just to make sure they are disadvantaged and increase the numbers of the tribe. Abortion is, by and large, a big no-no. At least it is for the Plains tribes. Women in places like MT, WY, ND and SD are some of the most set upon people in the country. The tribes have so little respect and regard for tribal women that kidnapping for enslavement or just to kill them is extraordinarily common. The tribes will NOT put abortion clinics up for tribal women to use and I’m not too sure they’d do it for off-reservation women for whom they have even less respect. Where the northern plains tribes are concerned, things are messed up.

    The only possible argument that might persuade them is the cha-ching factor and that is a long shot, and the tribes up here are impoverished to a degree seldom seen in this country…even in the projects. There is a reason drug and alcohol abuse is rampant on the rez’s up here: poverty, unemployment rates of 50% and better, little to no opportunities for pretty much anything…Want to see a typical town on the rez? Take I-90 up to the Crow Reservation and take the exit for Crow Agency-it will break your heart.

  5. I read that Kavanaugh issued an advisory that the court has decided that not only Federal law can operate on Native American land, but also state law can be enforced there, in answer to a request from the state of Oklahoma. Which suggested to me this whole SCOTUS attack on personal rights is not because of the Constitution, but, to take away any choice Americans have just because they can. Read Thomas’s comments to see where they are going next: outlaw contraception, no same sex acts: a return to bedroom invasions & arrests, outlaw same sex marriage — everything but interracial marriage — Mrs Thomas seems to think that is Constitutional.VOTE like your life depends on it — IT DOES!

  6. “They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it.” (Mahpiua Luta aka Red Cloud, Chief of the Lakota)

    Looks like SCotUS is about to do it again

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