France’s latest move to protect abortion rights should inspire us all.

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Enlightenment philosophers were read widely by the educated classes in the American colonies and Europe. Revolutionary fervor shook Europe’s most populous country, France, beginning in 1787 and ending in 1799. It reached its first high point in 1789 with the end of the ancien régime and the further weakening of the feudal system.

But a new “shot heard round the world” was fired by U.S. Supreme Court on June 24, 2022.

The Court was not undergirded by Enlightenment philosophies, nor did it base its decision on knowledge, freedom, and happiness. Instead, the Justices based their salvo on the tyranny of Christian nationalist autocracy and the full merging of church and state.

The Court disregarded the issue of precedent when it overturned *Roe v. Wade *(1973) in its *Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization *decision, thus unraveling the legal right to abortion that Americans maintained for nearly the last 50 years. The Court left it to the states to decide whether they would grant reproductive rights.

Since Dobbs, many state legislatures have banned reproductive healthcare for pregnant people and those who wish to become pregnant. They have also cast doubt on the use of in vitro fertilization procedures (IVF) and the use of mifepristone and misoprostol, safe and effective drugs for medication abortions.