While Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was essentially un fait accompli—a draft of the majority opinion, leaked in early May, had already made dreadfully clear what many SCOTUS heads had already assumed would come to pass given the current makeup of the Court, prior lip service regarding the importance of judicial precedent being worth less than the breath it took to utter—the bare fact of Roe‘s overturning nevertheless hit like a punch to the gut.
For what precious little it is worth, being an entirely fictional entity created by a non-lawyer for the express purposes of illustrated comedy and therefore well out of its depth in this current situation, Bear Lawyer, LLC’s parental leave policy is actually quite good: four months, fully paid, with benefits, plus optional visits by the firm principal to bond with the new bairns (and evaluate their fitness for future unpaid internships). Then again, said policy is only ever rarely taken advantage of, given the long, exhausting hours required for all employees and (unpaid) interns of the woodland offices of Bear Lawyer, LLC, and the incommodious outdoor lodgings provided thereto, the combination of which makes even casual courtship, let alone family-friendly partnership, an awkward proposition at best. On a related note, romantic entanglements amongst employees, while not strictly discouraged, nevertheless require that a veritable mountain of paperwork be filed with HR, including a very thorough waiver for documentary filmmaking purposes, the latter of which has proven to be something of a mood-killer (with rare and indescribably awkward exceptions).
All of which is entirely beside the point! Reproductive autonomy is sacrosanct in the State of New York (and many other states besides) as it rightly should have remained throughout the United States but for the laboured rhetorical contortions of certain retrograde Justices and their even more aggressive peers. The fallout from this decision has the potential to be catastrophic. Federal legislation to codify Roe remains a long shot at present, and extant trigger laws further complicate an already fraught process on a state-by-state basis. While important (and effective!) direct initiatives like abortion funds work to bridge the gap and provide for emergency transportation, lodging, support, and access to essential healthcare for those who would otherwise be denied their right to reproductive autonomy in their states of residence, others hold out hope for some sort of executive action on the federal level to safeguard whatever remains in the wake of Roe‘s overturning, and still others are keeping up with the long, slow work of engaging with voters to promote candidates and support legislative initiatives on the state and federal levels, much of which is hamstrung by longstanding structural issues like gerrymandering and the Senate filibuster.
So, yeah. Forgive a bear for doomscrolling in the depths of his den.
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