'Handmaid's Tale' author Margaret Atwood says SCOTUS is making her vision of a theocratic dictatorship real

As you certainly know, protesters gathered in front of the homes of the conservative Supreme Court justices this week. There’s video of a small group of women in “Handmaid’s Tale” cosplay marching in front of Justice Amy Coney’s home, but not much happened. Still, the handmaid costumes have been dusted off, and now The Atlantic has dusted off “Handmaid’s Tale” author Margaret Atwood, who’s Canadian, to weigh in on her novel coming true.

“Theocratic dictatorships do not lie only in the distant past,” @MargaretAtwood writes. “There are a number of them on the planet today. What is to prevent the United States from becoming one of them?” https://t.co/re2rVqwJqc

— Margaret E. Atwood (@MargaretAtwood) May 13, 2022

“I thought I was writing fiction,” she says.

Wait, you say: It’s not about the organs; it’s about the babies. Which raises some questions. Is an acorn an oak tree? Is a hen’s egg a chicken? When does a fertilized human egg become a full human being or person? “Our” traditions—let’s say those of the ancient Greeks, the Romans, the early Christians—have vacillated on this subject. At “conception”? At “heartbeat”? At “quickening?” The hard line of today’s anti-abortion activists is at “conception,” which is now supposed to be the moment at which a cluster of cells becomes “ensouled.” But any such judgment depends on a religious belief—namely, the belief in souls. Not everyone shares such a belief. But all, it appears, now risk being subjected to laws formulated by those who do. That which is a sin within a certain set of religious beliefs is to be made a crime for all.

Yes, our “traditions” have vacillated. As devout Catholic President Joe Biden recently informed us, “the existence of human life and being is a question” in “all basic mainstream religions.”

And although the “hard-line” of when life begins might stand at conception, most Americans approve of abortion being legal — up to a certain point, such as the finding of a heartbeat. We can’t say it’s the hard line of the Left that a baby isn’t a baby until childbirth; all 50 Senate Democrats this week voted that abortion up until childbirth should be legal nationwide. It’s mainstream.

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

— @Malvenue (@Malvenue) May 13, 2022

https://twitter.com/ishapiro/status/1525273334467989505

I missed the part where you discussed actual theocracies like Iran so, whatever

— Alex Joffe (@DrAlexJoffe) May 13, 2022

And which religion is the most responsible for this? You can say it.

— CronyCap Buzzkiller now on pivot watch. (@jdftgadsden) May 13, 2022

https://twitter.com/harrygato/status/1525135416004947968

A Canadian that neither understands the US constitution nor has faith in it? Shocker.

— JJ (@JJhkYank) May 13, 2022

https://twitter.com/GayPatriotPlus/status/1525094061622829058

This editor had to read it in a class on feminist literature in college soon after it was published in 1985, and it sounded just as hysterical then.

pic.twitter.com/GyXhQfxFj0

— Dangerous 🐰 Cult (@BobJustBobOkay) May 13, 2022

https://twitter.com/howmanyclowns/status/1525100182253101056

Please read your history and especially on early colonial America. If there was ever a time we could have become a theocracy it was then. We didn’t. We won’t. Your stuff played in the 70’s and 80’s but not today.

— sg (@latteconsrtve) May 13, 2022

She thought the Reagan administration was the beginning of a theocratic dictatorship in the U.S., so whatever.

Related:

Devout Catholic Joe Biden explains that ‘that the existence of human life and being is a question’ in ‘all basic mainstream religions’ https://t.co/GIB707cIka

— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) May 3, 2022