(Note. In the second post of May 15, I wrote "My Take," following the leak of the preliminary draft in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization. This is "My Take" following the final decision overturning Roe.)
As one might expect, the left went overboard in the reactions to the decision. Quite a few on the mainstream stations referred to the decision as "fascist." Mika Brzezinski, on MSNBC, also said the decision was "anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-contraception...and anti-freedom." Conservatives are used to the name-calling. We understand that demagoguery is the favored debating technique of the Left. Although, that is at least a little nicer than "fuck you Supreme Court," as some celebrities spouted.
So let's be clear. The decision in Dobbs did not make abortion illegal. It did say there was no federal constitutional right to an abortion. It returned the issue to the states, where, even Ruth Bader Ginsburg thought the debate should be. (See the 6/26/22 post regarding commentary in The New York Times.) And no, 5 white men did not make the decision in Dobbs. Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined in that decision, as did Justice Thomas. But 7 white men did make the decision in Roe. Back then it was okay for white men to decide these things.
Here was this past Sunday's editorial in the Los Angeles Times: "It's a dark time in America as this once-revered institution has taken the rare and awful path of depriving people of their rights." Nope, not what the Court did. What the Court did do was say that Roe was decided on, at best, very shaky constitutional grounds, that the Court should not have gotten involved with abortion in the first place, returning the issue to the voters and their elected state representatives.
Here was Representative Maxine Waters: "The hell with the Supreme Court. We will defy them." Defy the Supreme Court of the United States? I thought it was only Republicans who disrespected our democracy. Lest you tell me she is a little wacky, let's not forget Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer threatened Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Nor should we forget that an armed man who threatened to assassinate Kavanaugh was arrested near the Justice's home.
Of course, when the Left does not get their way, it is time to change the rules of the game. Pack the Court. Term limits for the Justices. Eliminate the filibuster in order to accomplish those goals. President Biden called the decision in Dobbs an "outlier" in the developed world. Nope. Ireland and Germany ban most abortions after 12 weeks. In Italy it's after 90 days. In France, Austria and Spain, abortion is banned after 14 weeks. In the Czech Republic it's 20 weeks, and in the UK it's 24 weeks. And there are exceptions for various reasons.
But, contrary to the desire of some, it is not unrestricted access up to and including the due date. Yet, there are states with no restrictions - Alaska, Oregon, New Mexico, Colorado, Vermont, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. And possibly New Hampshire. Just today I heard from someone who favors abortion through the due date. So let me be clear, such late term abortions (absent a need to protect the life of the mother) are murder. It is infanticide. I do not understand how anyone can justify that.
I remain opposed, as well, to an all-out ban of abortion. My position in the Dobbs case remains unchanged from May 15. The Mississippi statute in question banned abortions after 15 weeks. That is what the Court should have addressed. And notice how 15 weeks is a longer period than is allowed in quite a few European countries, where the people decided.
As Gerard Baker wrote in the 6/28/22 Wall Street Journal: "Progressives should now know what conservatives have known for a long time: that the burden is on them to convince voters to support ethically sound solutions that can balance the competing interests of women, the unborn and the soul of society itself." But, Democrats have for some time looked to the courts to accomplish their policy goals. The democratic process? Not so much.
COMMENT 1/2
ReplyDeleteIt’s dishonest at best to say the issue was returned to the states, where the Supreme Court justices know very well state legislatures are severely gerrymandered. And they’re acutely aware that Congress won’t act because it doesn’t represent the American public. Case in point is that the 6 Senators from CA, TX, and NY represent that same amount of people as 62 Senators from 31 other states. This is a system that obviously favors smaller, rural, and less dense states and allows for the minority to entrench its rule. But this is besides the point; state legislatures have no right to force women what to do with their bodies, plain and simple. This should be even more concerning considering this prohibition derives directly from the religious views of both the SC justices and a majority of conservatives who support their ruling. And it’s pure semantics for you to righteously claim that the SC did not deprive women of their rights, when you know as well as I do that half of the states have already done, or are in the process of doing, exactly that. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a court that actually tried to mediate between opposing interests, instead of six unelected officials imposing their personal religious views cloaked in Constitutional law on the country? What if they had said “Ok Mississippi, if you want to ban abortion after 15 weeks, a policy which evidence shows will disproportionately harm people with low income, especially minorities, you need to provide adequate financial support and childcare until the child starts public school at age 5.” Independent of my views of a 15 week limitation or on how long state financial support should last, this would be a compromise between a woman’s interest and the state’s interest in fetal rights, and could have avoided the crisis we’re currently in. But instead of trying to be a fair mediator, this court focuses on which rights a document written over two centuries ago by slave-owning white men, who didn’t grant women or non-property owners the right to vote and compromised on the value of black slaves, gives to contemporary women.
It is painfully obvious that rather than respecting 50 years of precedence about what prior justices had inferred from the Constitution, the six Republican justices read into it exactly what they wanted it to say. This is no different from too many people these days who read into the Bible their own twisted worldviews and willfully ignore the verses about social justice and compassion. And I would obviously agree that precedence that seeks to limit rights should often be overturned, but overturning precedence that expands rights is a new low. And this why the court now suffers from a legitimacy crisis. If justices don’t respect precedent that expanded individual rights and can change the law on a whim, how is this any different than rule by fiat?
COMMENT 2/2
ReplyDeleteAnd it is disingenuous at best for conservatives to be defending the SC, when if the roles were reversed there would be mayhem. Though this has been repeated often lately, let me walk you through it. Five of the 6 Republican justices were appointed by presidents who took office after losing the popular vote by winning the Electoral College. McConnell, who is only in the position of power that he is because the Senate elevates small rural states, prevented Obama from appointing Merrick Garland using absurdly contrived reasoning, and though it didn’t necessarily break any rules it was obviously against the spirit of democratic governance (though most of the American system and Republicans are – hard to dispute this fact as a large majority of Republicans still believe Trump won the 2020 election despite an astounding lack of evidence). And due to the vicissitudes of lifetime appointments to the court, where opportunities to appoint justices to the court is solely based on when justices die or decide to retire, Trump was able to appoint more justices in a single term (despite McConnell’s made up rule) than Obama was in two. Even Republicans would be hard pressed to say such a system is fair, and would be outraged if the system was used in reverse to prevent their will if it actually represented the majority.
Lastly, it’s quite rich to hear a Republican say that Democrats have looked to the courts rather than the democratic process to accomplish their goals. Is that not exactly what Republicans have done with abortion, campaign finance, gun rights, and climate action? How can Democrats be expected to work within a framework that empowers the minority to prevent any progress on legislation when you need 60 votes in a Senate that already disenfranchises the majority by diluting the power of large, liberal states and inflating the power of small, conservative, uneducated, and poor states? If you would argue that they need to work within that unfair framework to change it, we both know that a shrinking minority will never agree to a system that will reduce its power - let’s not forget this is a minority that was happy to follow along with Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud if it meant they got to remain in power. So rather than making a disingenuous attempt at taking the moral high road by saying Democrats don’t respect democracy, at least own up to the fact that Republicans are able to impose their will on a range of issues that polls show a majority of Americans are against because of a system that is inherently anti-democratic.