Florida’s attorney general is one among many from red states across the country threatening Maine with legal action as the New England state considers a shield law that would protect those seeking abortions and health care from criminal repercussions in Florida.
As more Republican states have taken action to limit or altogether ban abortion access and transgender health care, Democratic Party-led states see shield laws as a way to protect those seeking those services away from home, according to according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights advocacy group.
States’ Rights is a euphemism for the reactionary cause du jour. You can call them out for a contradiction, but at best they will just ignore you because they know and we know they’re not talking about or concerned with the rights of states vs. federal mandate. Then there’s always the threat that they will drop the euphemism and say that they want to punish promiscuous women and trans deviants. Trump has largely proven that the right doesn’t have to watch its mouth near as much as they used to think. Rather than abandon their political identity, the majority of the “moderate” right will go along with the new framing. The only ones who lose out in this shift in rhetoric are women and trans people, who are now directly and publicly targeted not just by the reactionary fringes but by the right as a whole.
If you’re wondering, yes, I absolutely lifted most of this from the Alt-Right Playbook, “The Death of a Euphemism”
https://youtu.be/0dBJIkp7qIg for the uninitiated