As bad as this is, I haven’t even gotten to the really depressing part. Most people assume that if fascism came to America, we would recognize it as individuals and refuse to go along with it. In reality, very few people are directly affected by living in an authoritarian country; life is mostly “boring and tolerable” for the majority. “Yes,” most people would say, “but if asked to do things I know were wrong, I would refuse to comply. Because I’m an American, and I know better.”
Except, we’re already testing this every day in red states, and failing miserably. Let’s discuss a scenario that is already happening frequently.
A woman goes into the E.R. She’s 18 weeks pregnant, her water broke, and she’s miscarrying. There’s no way to save the fetus. She’s likely to either bleed out or die of sepsis if left untreated. A doctor assesses her and quickly reaches this conclusion. But because there’s a heartbeat (for now), he can do nothing. The doctor calls hospital administrators. They pass it along to general counsel. Counsel comes back with the determination that there are greater civil and criminal liability risks if they perform a D&C than if the woman dies from lack of treatment. This is passed to the administrators, who passes it to the doctor, who tells the woman to go wait in the car until she’s nearly dead and then maybe he can treat her, if there isn’t a fetal heartbeat.