Overturning Roe v. Wade: Another Chapter, But Not the End Of The Fight
Overturning Roe v. Wade: Another Chapter, But Not the End Of The Fight
This is what Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett lied their asses off for
(A little bonus NS&CB on a very sad and difficult Friday)
We all knew today was coming. Yet, somehow those of us who still believe in a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her own body hoped it was a bad dream. We hoped that the original leaked decision overturning Roe v. Wade was just a bad mistake that would, in the end, be corrected, and the status quo would remain unchanged.
Sadly, with Donald Trump’s 6-3 young and uber-Conservative majority, it appears that the “party of small government” is but a sick, sad joke and that abject cruelty is now the official policy of the GOP.
Friday, June 24, 2022, will become a landmark day in American legal and historical annals. History will no doubt remember it as one of the darkest days in our democracy, a day when the Supreme Court diminished our fundamental rights,
thanks to a conservative political project that has made a mission of targeting the basic individual rights democracies by definition protect, and because the country’s increasingly undemocratic political system has disproportionately advantaged political minority rule and fueled its radicalization. Roe’s demise is inseparable from the larger democratic crisis facing the country: It is yet another perilous sign for the future of not just reproductive freedoms but of American democracy as a whole.
“This does not track with what democracies do,” said Sophia Jordán Wallace, a University of Washington political scientist who has studied the relationship between abortion rights and democracy. “Democracies have been expanding access to abortion, and accepting that this is part of health care and part of people having control over their own bodies and health. It’s really alarming.”
While other countries worldwide are expanding a woman’s right to abortion and other healthcare services, Conservative White men in this country are dragging women back to the 19th century. Those who firmly believe that women should not be allowed to make decisions regarding their reproductive functions have prevailed, but I have a feeling this battle isn’t over.
While radical Conservatives have achieved their goal for the moment, those who support a woman’s right to choose will continue to fight. One thing to remember is that overturning Roe v. Wade doesn’t end abortion nationwide. It simply sends the decision back to the states.
And 26 states are chomping at the bit over the opportunity to make women once again second-class citizens.
So much for “Roe is settled law,” eh? Methinks perhaps Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett may have been less than honest at their confirmation hearings. They intended to participate in overturning Roe V. Wade all along; they just weren’t about to tip their hand.
And if you think I’m calling three (actually, all five Conservative) Supreme Court justices liars…well, don’t you win the prize for perceptiveness??
Yes, they lied. They all did. Donald Trump knew it (promising to overturn Roe was his top criteria for a Supreme Court justice). Everyone with a vote in the confirmations hearings knew it. And yet they were still confirmed because Republicans have no problem with strategic lying. They also wanted Roe overturned.
For all of you who couldn’t be bothered to vote or didn’t think your vote would count, this is what happens when you don’t use your voice (your vote). In a democracy, a decision not to vote is also a decision that carries weight. In this case, it’s what helped to elect Donald Trump in 2016 and got us to where we are today.
(Yes, Hillary Clinton was right…about everything.)
It’s a virtual certainty that if more people had voted in 2016, Hillary Clinton would have triumphed in the Electoral College (she won the popular vote by three million). Had that happened, a woman’s right to choose would still be safe from the Far-Right. Instead, women are again looking at having to push the same rock up the same hill they did 50 years ago. It’s wrong, unfair, and shouldn’t have to be this way.
And yet here we are once more.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday overruled Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion after almost 50 years in a decision that will transform American life, reshape the nation’s politics and lead to all but total bans on the procedure in about half of the states.
The ruling will test the legitimacy of the court and vindicate a decades-long Republican project of installing conservative justices prepared to reject the precedent, which had been repeatedly reaffirmed by earlier courts. It will also be one of the signal legacies of President Donald J. Trump, who vowed to name justices who would overrule Roe. All three of his appointees were in the majority in the 6-to-3 ruling.
It’s too early to know what the long-term effect of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization will be, other than the 26 states with “trigger laws” allowing for almost total bans on abortion once Roe is overturned.
Both proponents and opponents of abortion rights know this isn’t the end of the battle. It’s a significant victory for the anti-choice movement and a terrible setback for those who support a woman’s right to choose.
Here in Oregon, nothing will change, save for the number of women coming to the Beaver State seeking abortion services. The right to an abortion is codified in state law, and being a blue state where a woman’s right to choose has broad support, that’s unlikely to change. Oregon will be among the 24 states picking up the slack from the 26 states that will almost certainly ban abortion.
Yes, people will die, but that’s the cost of protecting babies, right? If only they were as concerned about them post-birth as they are pre-birth.
No one should think that overturning Roe v. Wade will end abortion in America. As before Roe, those with means will always be able to obtain a safe, if not altogether legal, abortion. Those lacking money will, as happened pre-Roe, likely take unnecessary and, in some cases, deadly risks. Of course, when you consider women to be property at worst or second-class citizens at best, a pregnant woman risking her life isn’t your problem, is it?
Today, tomorrow, and perhaps the next few days are for anger and reaction. Then, pro-choice forces must marshal their resources and determine their next steps. Today isn’t and can’t be the last battle to be fought in this struggle. No civil rights struggle is a straight line nor a smooth road- and it’s about to become much bumpier from here.
The other side may think they have God on their side, but we have individual rights and morality on ours. If we want to save American democracy, it’s looking as if the fight will have to start with abortion rights. Because if the Far-Right succeeds in stripping women of that fundamental individual right, how long will it be before they begin chipping away at other rights?
Freedom to assemble?
Freedom to speak freely?
Freedom from religious oppression?
Freedom of artistic expression?
I could go on, but I think you can see where I’m heading, no? Rights, once they disappear, are difficult to restore. And once the Far-Right gets a taste of what they can do, you can bet they won’t stop once they’ve decimated abortion rights.
First, they came for the abortion clinics, but I didn’t say or do anything because I wasn’t a pregnant woman….