The Sky Is Falling
I can think of no greater tyranny than the denial of bodily autonomy. To have the government dictate when you can bear children. Whom you can have sex with. Whom you can marry. What kind of medical treatment you will be subjected to. Your freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. To me, this seems pretty self-evident. How can you have a stable democracy when the government can dictate so many deeply personal choices?
I’m 54 years old. Roe v. Wade became law when I was 5, so I have enjoyed the reproductive freedom Roe and Griswold, the precedent Roe was based on that legalized contraception (frankly, I can’t even BELIEVE contraception was ever ILLEGAL) my entire life.
I carefully weighed out the pros and cons and intellectually decided early on that I could find no good reason to have kids. I’ve always been painfully aware of the damage humans and particularly over-population have done to the planet. In college, I read the “Limits to Growth” paper and felt humanity was headed for impending doom. Pollution…mass extinction…climate change…nothing has changed since I graduated from college, and in fact, things have gotten worse. I couldn’t justify bringing a child into a doomed world.
I always thought that if I felt the desire for a child, I’d adopt one. There are plenty of unwanted children in the world. Fact is, I never once felt that desire. I like other people’s children. Children love me, and I love them. I just never wanted one of my own.
Griswold and Roe enshrined my right to decide when or whether to have children. Free, safe contraceptives ensured I would never need an abortion. What does Roe say? It says the government has no right to interfere with health decisions made between a WOMAN AND HER DOCTOR. Despite having sailed past my childbearing years with that right, and no longer at personal risk if it’s overturned, I am still upset and mad as hell that extremists on the current Supreme Court are set to strip it from younger women.
I’ve seen the right wing try to dismantle Roe for decades. I’ve marched. I’ve donated to Planned Parenthood (which is where I got my first prescription of birth control pills after a pregnancy scare at the age of 17). I’ve manned phone lines. I’ve voted solely for politicians who are passionately pro-choice. When Trump was running for President, he made no secret of his intention to nominate “pro-life” Justices and judges. He even went so far as to say women who have abortions should be jailed (never mind that, according to Ronan Farrow, who investigated the National Enquirer’s “catch and kill” policy on Trump scandals, he’s paid for at least one abortion in his lifetime).
So, this leaked Alito decision was no surprise. However, like a lot of politically aware progressives who intellectually knew that the day when SCOTUS would overturn Roe was coming, it still felt like a gut punch to wake up and read about this leaked decision and the news SCOTUS had a majority to overturn Roe yesterday. I wanted to just go back to bed, close my eyes, and hope it was a bad dream. (The title of this article comes from a pundit interviewed on MSNBC about the leak).
I realize this decision was written in February and is subject to change. But when I read it, I not only felt sick at how extreme it is, but also how FLAWED it is from a judicial standpoint. It sure reads as if Alito is grasping at straws to justify a purely POLITICAL decision, and that he brings his own personal values into it — something a jurist should never do.
He frets that the basis of Roe could lead to legalized drug use or (gasp!) prostitution. Heaven forbid we get rid of vice laws. Never mind that states with legalized weed are thriving financially, or that countries with legalized prostitution aren’t crumbling to the ground. We’ve had Roe for 50 years, and there is still only one state with legalized prostitution, and only a few states with fully legal marijuana. His antiquated views make an argument for term limits on the Court. This decision shows how out of touch he is.
He also argues that the privacy right behind Roe is not “deeply rooted in history.” So, fifty years isn’t “deeply rooted”? And does this mean anything that never happened before, can’t happen now? The U.S. simply can’t progress, huh? And things that ARE “deeply rooted”, like slavery and racism, are A-OK, I suppose.
Well, folks — welcome to the new American theocracy.
As Lawrence O’Donnell points out, “A majority of the Supreme Court now supports a law that would force a 12 year old child who is raped to have a child.” How can the same people who whine about the government forcing them to wear masks, be okay with the government forcing a raped child to give birth to a child? Yet most of the “trigger” laws ready to go in red states when Roe falls would make no exception for rape or incest. In fact, a Republican in Ohio said something that turned my stomach. And should’ve turned anyone’s stomach. “Rape is an opportunity.”
Republicans have made some pretty shocking, wackadoodle comments about rape. I am old enough to remember when such comments ended a politician’s career. For example, Missouri Rep Todd Akin’s (burn in hell, 2012) comment that “legitimate rape doesn’t result in pregnancy”. But viewing a 12 year old child giving birth to her rapist’s baby as an “opportunity” takes the cake, and is apparently fine now.
Don’t be fooled. Alito’s decision makes it clear SCOTUS won’t stop with Roe. His vehement hammering of the decision as being “egregiously wrong”, and his denial of the privacy rights the Warren Court determined was articulated in the Constitution, show that every decision based on the 14th Amendment is now on precarious grounds.
A whole slew of rights we’ve been taking for granted are on the chopping block.
If Roe falls, these cases are likely to be next:
- Obergefell v. Hodges — the 2014 decision that gave us marriage equality. Do we really think Republicans, who’ve been furiously passing hateful anti-LGBTQ laws in the states they control, and even vengefully attacking corporations that refuse to go along with their bigoted policies, are going to let this decision stand? Of course not.
- Griswold v. Connecticut — the case the Court used as a basis for the Roe v. Wade decision that legalizes contraceptives. It makes no sense to me that the right is against abortion, but ALSO wants to get rid of the right to have safe, legal contraception. Failed Reagan nominee Robert Bork tore Griswold apart in his confirmation hearing (which our current president helped torpedo), ensuring he would never sit on the Court. The GOP has been butthurt about this ever since. Biden even pointed out that Alito’s leaked decision uses a lot of the same language about Griswold that Bork used back then.
- Compassion in Dying v. State of Washington — Alito mentioned this case, which challenged the constitutionality of a Washington State statute that banned all assisted suicide. States that legalized euthanasia should be on the alert — clearly the right is coming for our right to painlessly end our own life, with a doctor’s assistance — a right many other western industrialized countries without a significant, rabid evangelical population have allowed for decades.
- Lawrence v. Texas — this case, which Alito also mentioned, overturned a Texas law making sodomy illegal. I can’t imagine how anyone who claims to be a patriot who loves democracy can be okay with police enforcing laws against what consenting adults do in their own bedrooms, but bigotry sells in the GOP. It’s how they get their poorly educated and evangelical base to vote for politicians who screw them.
- Loving v. Virginia — don’t think that just because Clarence Thomas is in an interracial marriage he won’t make them illegal. Do you honestly think that because conservatives love to ban abortions, that they never GET abortions? Or that they never take their girlfriends or mistresses to get abortions? We know that’s not the case. Of course these hypocrites live by the creed of one law for me, another law for thee.
Indiana Senator Mike Braun recently stated in an interview that interracial marriage should be illegal. The blowback forced him to walk it back, but I’m not buying it. These extremists always say crazy things like that, and it’s decidedly not a mistake. They know what their wealthy corporate donors require of them. They all goosestep in line with it. It’s a white nationalist agenda that I’m sure advocates making interracial marriage illegal. Because white nationalism is fundamentally about increasing the number of white people to prevent that “replacement theory” Tucker Carlson keeps warning his poorly educated racist base about. Braun was probably floating out a “trial balloon” to gauge how much resistance a repeal would get.
The Supreme Court is no longer an impartial body upholding the rule of law. It is now an instrument of fascism.
What do we do about it?
- Push for the expansion of SCOTUS. Yes, we need to vote Republicans out in November. But that’s not enough. We face an IMMEDIATE threat to our rights. There is nothing in the Constitution dictating the number of Justices. One way to balance out the right-wing extremists is to add more left-leaning Justices. In order to do this, though, we need to:
- Demand that Congress eliminate the filibuster. But, you may be asking, how will this ever happen when corporate whores Manchin and Sinema are against it? VOTE IN MORE DEMOCRATS IN NOVEMBER. This will require more than just voting. We must all get people to the polls. Write postcards and letters. Join a phone bank. Whatever it takes.
- March march march. Protest protest protest. In numbers too big to ignore. Alito may have beligerently declared in his confirmation hearing that the Court shouldn’t care about public opinion, but when its decisions risk a civil war, they damn well SHOULD care. When their decisions lead to the erosion of democracy, they should care. John Roberts has indicated he does care about public opinion. As do other Justices.
- Push for impeachment. There are Justices who deserve it. Kavanaugh lied in his confirmation hearing. Multiple times. We still also don’t know who paid his gambling debts, and the way he got his seat is shady. It appeared that Trump may have blackmailed Justice Kennedy, whose son helped Trump acquire loans at Deutschebank — this warrants an investigation. Not to mention, the over 1000 FBI tips about Kavanaugh and the sexual assault allegations against him that died at the hands of Bill Barr. Clarence Thomas continues to refuse to recuse himself in cases where his QAnon kook wife has a vested interest. Not to mention, her participation in the insurrection. Why are we letting insurrectionists remain on the Court and in Congress? That’s a separate article I’m working on.
- Donate money to organizations that are fighting for our rights, like Planned Parenthood and the ACLU.
Tldr: if Roe is overturned, we’re fucked.
Copyright 2022 S. Wade
