The only thing I find even creepier than the women at abortion rights rallies whose faces are so distorted with rage they look like fugitives from a de Kooning painting are the ones who link arms and virtually dance the Irish jig because they’ve succeeded in enshrining unrestricted abortion up to the moment of birth in their state constitution. Cathleen Kaveny, the Darald and Juliet Libby Professor of Law and Theology at Boston College, says that pro-choice wins in votes across the country are happening because many women think: “We have to choose, and if our only choice is a binary choice between too much permissiveness or too much restriction, we’re gonna go with too much permissiveness.”

Is the need to be “safe” encoded in female DNA, going back to the time of the Neanderthals when we were running from mastodons? Although both sexes hunted, when it came to facing down a mastodon or woolly rhinoceros, who was more likely to take the lead? Fossil evidence indicates that chores were gender specific; women made clothing, men repaired the stone tools. (Cooking? Something tells me those Neanderthal guys were heavy into grilling.) Although from the dawn of time we’ve been at a physical disadvantage, it’s also true that a boy’s first lesson is: Don’t hit girls. That is, unless he slaps on some lipstick and a little pink sports bra, calls himself Shirley and joins the women’s volleyball team. But more and more states are banning such transgression to keep women safe. Yes, there is domestic abuse, but he’s never the hero and the rest of society despises him. There are guardrails. So, is the “need-to-be-safe” reflex in the voting booth triggered by ancient awareness of our physical disparities, or is what these women need to be “safe” from more accurately called . . . consequences?

Having said that, when it comes to adjusting to the end of Roe, the “We’re gonna go with too much permissiveness” thinking is not only the domain of jittery women. It’s been much discussed how OB/GYNs are loath to follow the science post Roe because of fear they may be breaking the law even if they act in good faith. Penalties can be severe; in Texas doctors could face up to 99 years in prison, fines of $100,000 and more, and the loss of their medical license. That’s for performing an illegal abortion. But—the laws are so vague a doctor could conceivably get jail time for treating ruptured membranes or an ectopic pregnancy. Or maybe he’s just afraid it’s a possibility. Really? So, the good doctor is willing to let a woman bleed out in the parking lot rather that get in Dutch with the sheriff? What happened to Do No Harm? What happened to get a lawyer and present an affirmative defense, i.e., “Technically I may have broken the law, but I did it for a good reason.” Is the spectacle of a doctor going to jail for 99 years under such circumstances even believable? And as far as an outright illegal abortion goes—one where no medical emergency exists except in the fantasy world of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton where “emotional distress” about being pregnant is a danger to her “health”—doctors who are too scared to treat real emergencies are going to stick their neck out for that?

With Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court did away with an important area of criminal law and public health in one fell swoop. That was easy; restoring the legal framework, as we are seeing now, is complicated. Legislation is slow and ponderous; it could be years before the laws recognize the nuances of obstetric and gynecological care. If Roe’s national abortion mandate had never happened perhaps organic and gradual state-by-state legal adjustments, based on medicine alone, not “abortion is female empowerment” ideologies, would have been the norm. In the meantime, instead of railing against the Dobbs decision, people who are smart enough to get through medical school should find ways to cope with the difficult adjustment period. Instead of staying mum while abortion rights lawyers leap at every chance to challenge abortion law in court, doctors could organize a system for scanning all pertinent charts and tests into a data base that would document their medical decisions; they could also demand access to an affirmative defense legal team funded by the state should their actions in preventing women from bleeding out be questioned by local authorities.

There does seem to be a strategy of non-compliance afoot. Professionally, the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) have put pressure on pro-life doctors, including veiled threats to withhold board certification from physicians who promote “misinformation or disinformation” about abortion. (You can read about this in detail in an interview with Dr. Christina Francis, who heads up the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists [AAPOG], in the Fall 2023 issue of the Human Life Review.) But, risking stepping on toes here, could the “God Complex” some doctors have be a factor in their fear of Dobbs? Scientists need not be constrained by the guardrails lesser mortals require? Between restrictions and permissiveness, they, too, are “gonna go with permissiveness”?

Back to being chased by mastodons. And dancing the Irish jig because you feel like you just outran one. Ahem. Instead of justifying all your actions with the cartoon folklore of Alley Oop hitting you on the head with a club and dragging you back to the cave; instead of exhibiting exceedingly bad form, wildly celebrating passage of no-holds-barred legislation on aborting babies … why not approach the microphone at the press event low key and somber. Look into the camera and say: “To all women and girls who are watching this, we’ve got the law managed, but having the right to do something doesn’t make it the right thing to do. Make abortion the very last resort, not your first choice. You have minds and hearts. Use them.”

What harm could it do?