America’s Cruelty Playbook: Irish Times

Political leaders in southern region of the United States are making strides to limit abortion rights with the ultimate goal of reversing the Roe v. Wade court decision that protects a woman’s right to end a pregnancy. The laws target poor and vulnerable women while the wealthy women can travel to obtain care. Citizens often ignore the slow chipping away at rights in a few places, though recent organized attacks on abortion rights, with the intention of bringing the issue before the US Supreme Court, may have gone too far. The willingness to intrude on women’s personal decisions stems from US legacies of slavery and genocide of native peoples, argues Una Mullally, an Irish Times contributor. “White fragility matched with white supremacy has constructed an architecture of cruelty to maintain dominance, oppress others, and torture those who seek to unseat the racist patriarchal structures of American society,” she writes. “It’s about a country that talks in feelings, not facts, yet won’t process its own propensity for cruelty and emerge with empathy…” She warns that religious fundamentalists everywhere will follow the American playbook. – YaleGlobal