On our minds: How police violence sparks mass movements — and why abortion bans have a similar effect. |
 | | A state trooper swinging a billy club at John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, as the police break up a civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala., on March 7, 1965.Associated Press |
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I really hope that you will take a few minutes to read the article. Not just because I am proud of it, (though I am), or because I think that what is happening in Colombia is worth your attention (though it is). But I hope you will read it because I believe it explains something bigger about how mass movements form in democracies: That when police beat protesters, many people see that as evidence that they cannot trust their government, or the health of their democracy. And that can provoke generation-defining crises. |
"It allows that first contact of, 'Oh, what people have been saying is true. The police do seem to act in these arbitrary and violent ways, unprompted, unprovoked, without justification,'" Yanilda González, a Harvard Kennedy School political scientist, told me. That loss of trust can spark nationwide demands for change. |
Since reporting that article, I have been thinking a lot about another type of mass movement that has emerged around the world, with seismic effect, in recent years: the women's movements in Poland, Argentina, and Ireland. Like those in Colombia and Chile and the United States, all transcended any single issue, and all were pushing for fundamental changes to the character of the state. But they weren't sparked by police violence. They arose out of demands by women — and other people with uteruses — for reproductive rights. |
At first blush that seems very different from the police attacking protesters with bullets and tear gas. But I think that there might be greater similarities than initially appear. Just as police violence offers people graphic proof that democratic shortcomings pose a physical danger to their bodies, laws restricting abortion offer concrete evidence that having limited political power can put one in physical danger — in that case, an unwanted pregnancy. |
The abortion law drew attention to the Catholic Church's powerful influence over the elected government. The church had supported the Solidarity movement against Communism in the 1980s. Ending Communism was supposed to bring about a Poland in which people could be free of state violence, equal before the law, and able to choose their own government. But the abortion law showed that those promises came with small print: Under democracy, Polish women's reproductive freedom would shrink, not grow. |
In the United States, restrictions on abortion have tended to be piecemeal and technocratic, which may help to explain why they have not sparked that kind of mass backlash. But that might soon change. A few days ago, the Supreme Court announced that it will hear a case this autumn that could overturn Roe v. Wade. Many observers expect that the conservative majority will strike it down. If it does, many may find that message difficult to ignore. |
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