Determined To Foment A Rebellion

The Prophecy of Abigail Adams and Believing the Promise of a Feminist Future

As is often the case with the words of a woman, Abigail Adams’ famous phrase, “Remember the ladies,” is almost always spayed by an absence of context when quoted. Taken alone, her words sound like a plaintive plea: remember us, if you would, sir, on your way to power.

But, in her letter to her husband John, it’s clear that patriarchal noblesse oblige was not what Abigail had in mind. The entire paragraph of her letter reads as follows:

“I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands. Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.”

If you get your independence, we damn well better get ours. Or else.

As assured as it might have seemed then, this widespread female rebellion has yet to manifest despite the fact that “the ladies” were most certainly not remembered. Women did not gain their independence with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, nor even the right to vote for another 144 years, and still today, women are grossly underrepresented at every level of government.

So when, if ever, will this prophecy, which so many of us want to believe in, finally come to pass?

Many pundits predicted the repeal of Roe would trigger just such a mass revolt. They - and in truth, I - were shocked on election night when that wave of fed-up females never swept over the polls. After all, the overturning of Roe marked an unprecedented regression of women’s rights. Never before in this country has such a substantial right been granted to women - then revoked.

Yet, in our impatience, we make the CIA’s classic Cold War mistake: We expected revolution to materialize after a single change in conditions. Meanwhile, the history of social progress and guerilla warfare teaches us that true revolutions must be grown grass blade by grass blade, heart by heart.

And though the overturning of Roe did not precipitate the spring of constructive unrest, it was not without consequence as several significant actors took unprecedented actions to combat laws unjustly endangering women.

In April of 2022, when the country waited with bated breath as SCOTUS heard oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer took decisive action.

Were Roe to fall, Michigan law would automatically revert to a 1931 ban on abortion depriving women access to meaningful health care even in the case of rape and incest. Cutting this would-be onslaught on women’s rights off at the pass, Whitmer preemptively filed a lawsuit asking the court to recognize a constitutional right to an abortion under the Due Process Clause of the Michigan Constitution. As Whitmer told the Michigan Advocate, “Nearly my whole life, this is a right that’s afforded women the freedom to live and enjoy full rights to privacy and autonomy and equality as American citizens. All of that is in jeopardy.”

By staying the revision to the 1931 ban, women’s healthcare advocates were able to organize in a non-crisis but still urgent atmosphere as they campaigned for the Reproductive Freedom for All Act (RFFA) that would enshrine the right to abortion in the State Constitution. From this dynamic environment enriched by government and grassroots efforts, advocates grew deep roots of support for RFFA, which passed with overwhelming approval that November.

The same kind of interlocking nodes of activism are growing across the country, from the pilots of Elevated Access to the numerous state attorneys general who refused to enforce pre-Roe abortion bans to the millions of women organizing impactful campaigns that continue to shape state laws and the national discourse around women’s health care.

But perhaps most symbolically significant were the actions of Arizona Governor Kathryn Hobbs, who neutered the efforts of MAGA militants attempting to reinstitute a law passed in 1864 (!!!) that banned nearly all abortive care. Passed before women had the right to vote, the attempt to revive this law of misogynistic zealotry had the unintended effect of breathing new life into Abigail Adams’ prophecy. Women had no say in the law’s creation either at the time of its original enactment or in the contemporary proposal for its reinstatement.

As the kids say, Governor Hobbs understood the assignment, issuing an executive order effectively barring county attorney generals from prosecuting abortion cases. In a breathtaking move of all-out rebellion rarely seen in American history, a lawmaker refused to enforce an unjust law. With the stroke of her pen, Hobbs split open the seed of Adams’ promise of a women’s revolt.

The continuing assault on the right to choose is not the only issue facing women in today’s increasingly misogynistic political landscape. Nor is it the most pressing on an everyday level. After all, it is only a small number of women who seek abortive care. The lack of funding for breast cancer research and child care impacts the lives of more women, as do the gender pay gap and the stunning prevalence of violence against women.

Yet, the right to choose is foundational to all rights of women - not rights specific to women - but all of our rights as citizens of the United States. In constituting bodily autonomy, the right to choose affirms our status as free and equal citizens. It is from this truth - that we hold to be self-evident - that all other rights flow.

When our bodily autonomy, our status as equal citizens capable of making decisions pertaining to our individual lives, is cleaved from us, it serves as a precedent to strip us of our other rights. In this event, the MAGA maxim of “Your body, my choice” quickly morphs into all-encompassing control of women’s lives.

It’s easy to forget that not so long ago, this nation’s laws inhibited women’s freedom in almost every aspect of their lives. Not until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 were women guaranteed the ability to have a bank account, credit card, or mortgage without the consent of a male. Until 1993, women were prohibited from wearing PANTS on the Senate floor. And it’s difficult to remember that we are only a few strokes of a pen, a few votes away, from losing these rights and so many others.

Rights exist within a dynamic ecosphere. Altering one element changes all the others. And like any ecosphere, when too many elements are removed, the whole is destabilized, rendering its components much more vulnerable.

The agenda of the far right that now occupies the center of power goes well beyond revoking a woman’s right to choose. They seek to dismantle protections against gender-based discrimination, limit access to education, curtail women’s recourse to sexual harassment in the workplace, and economically disadvantage working women through oligarchic tax structures. Some in their legion have even suggested the repeal of the 19th Amendment.

But their primary and protracted assault on our right to choose is strategically sound in the cruel logic of their war against women. This right is nothing less than our first and most powerful line of defense. It forms the foundation from which all other rights can grow and by which all other rights are protected. When it is removed, we are rendered that much more defenseless and that much less able to grow our freedoms.

At the same time, the citizens and elected officials working to protect the right to choose are doing more than ensuring that women can access medical care. They are doing more than shoring up our defenses. They are creating a rich environment capable of nurturing the rebellions required to protect our already hard-won rights and create the conditions to advance our freedom in the future.

So, back to the question of when Abigail Adams’ rebellion will come to pass: It is growing all around us. But it is incumbent on us to protect, nurture, and grow this rebellion against those laws in which we have no voice or representation whenever and however we can.