The US has already grown used to the horror caused by abortion bans. And Republicans have sought to quash the stories
Mon 28 Sep 2026
Abortion has faded from the headlines since the Dobbs decision of 2022, and Republicans like it that way.
In the immediate aftermath of the supreme court's overturning of Roe v Wade, as millions of women lost access to the dignity and self-determination that abortion provided them, clinics shut their doors, and the extent of Dobbs's horrendously adverse public health implications started to become clear, abortion was always, it seemed, in the headlines.
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"But the stories have faded from the headlines as the years have gone by. Feminism has gone dramatically out of style, with the big women's rights NGOs wounded enough by Dobbs and attacks from the Trump administration that they have been largely unable to push their agenda in either media or policy, and algorithmic social media driving a rise in gender conservatism and politicized misogyny, particularly among young men.
But maybe more importantly, abortion has ceased to be a story because the horrors of abortion bans have ceased to be news:
the US has grown used to the swift and dramatic erosion of women's health and status that has followed Dobbs, grown used to the horror stories and upward ticking body counts, grown into ease, and even a kind of compliant boredom, with women's death and indignity."
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