Six Degrees of Separation originated in a 1929 Hungarian short story according to Wikipedia. In almost a century, it has been incorporated into films, games, other literature, music, television, formal mathematics, and psychology. The concept suggests each person is no more than six connections removed from another, if that chain of connections can be determined.
If a friend of your neighbor’s daughter-in-law tests positive for covid, that’s four degrees of separation from you and, somehow in our human way, makes covid more relevant. I recently learned the nephew of a young job trainee I knew in San Francisco in the ‘70s died of gun violence. I knew the teenage trainee long before she had a nephew but the news that he – Mario Woods – died in 2015 at the hands of San Francisco police officers, made it more personal for me. Three degrees of separation.
As I write this, the report from Uvalde TX states “systemic failures” allowed almost 400 armed officers not to engage the mass murderer at Robb Elementary School where 21 were killed and 17 injured. That makes three dozen more grieving families created their new close degrees of separation from gun violence. The reported failures included poor adherence to school security procedures and a dysfunctional chain of command within and between law enforcement agencies.
In the 2015 death of Mario Woods the independent official investigation determined the 5 officers used “unnecessary force,” but none received discipline because the responsibility lay with “policy error.” In Uvalde, “systemic failures” may mean no one will be held officially accountable.
Of course, this comes from the state of Texas where the conservative republican-dominated legislature starkly divides on private rights to determine lethality and maternity. The former they support with pro-gun legislation (Texas is an “open-carry” state), while the latter they oppose with strict “must-carry” laws for pregnant women.
The repercussions have only begun to emerge from the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision to supersede both the 1973 Roe and 1992 Casey decisions protecting abortion rights. Much has been written about the archaic basis for Justice Alito’s majority opinion; it will be fodder for debate and articles, but it is past. The future holds an ever-expanding demonstration of how ill-conceived and poorly written “trigger” laws will create problems in states with reactionary republican legislatures instantly criminalizing abortions.
With each revelation of unintended consequences or oppressive enforcement, more women and men will note their diminished degree of separation from the issue. With each recounting of an untold abortion story by a bold woman, others’ degrees of separation will decrease. The connection to a cold news story will be made more personal by the human thread: “I know that person, or someone who knows that person.”
Others will realize the peripheral effect on themselves. There are already stories from states where personhood begins at conception. A First Amendment challenge in Florida is based on Jewish doctrine that personhood begins at birth, not conception, giving the woman complete discretion till then. In Texas, a sole pregnant driver claimed her embryo allowed her to use the carpool freeway lane (she still got the ticket). Newly pregnant couples may plan to claim tax exemptions for unborn dependents during gestation. Perhaps lost tax revenue will cause republican legislators to refine their laws. For the money, of course.
And then there is the national story of the raped Ohio girl – less than a decade from being a fetus, herself – almost forced to carry the resultant fetus, and then criminally pursued by authorities for receiving an abortion in another state. Such are the challenges unanticipated by over-eager, tunnel visioned creators of strict anti-abortion laws. As each of these stories unfolds, so do the links to Americans previously oblivious to how narrow are their separations: “I have a child or grandchild who is ten …”
By now readers will already know the outcome of the Kansas election on Tuesday, August 2nd, where the state Constitutional protection of abortion was being challenged. Kansas has a republican supermajority in both houses of the legislature. The conservative legislature is expected quickly to propose abortion prohibition bills if the ballot initiative passed. Keep your eyes on Kansas.