A human right, gone

The Supreme Court’s conservative bloc imposes its ideological will in revoking a constitutional right.

With the push of a button, six conservative justices on Friday morning stripped American women of their constitutional right to choose whether to have an abortion, and reduced half the population to second-class citizens.

Though the decision was hardly a surprise after the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft in May, it nonetheless comes as a devastating blow to privacy, bodily autonomy and individual freedom. In revoking the constitutional protection women have known for nearly 50 years under 1973’s landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, the court sent the question of abortion rights back to the states. Upward of 28 states are poised to severely restrict or ban abortions — even in cases in which women are victims of rape or incest, or their health is in danger.

The ruling is also a blow to the credibility of the nation’s highest court, particularly the conservative justices who prevaricated, dissembled or lied in their Senate confirmation hearings when they professed respect for established precedent or avoided a discussion of their legal views on the premise of judicial impartiality. That deception was evident long before the three newest conservative justices, all appointed by former President Donald Trump, even got to the court. Mr. Trump, in a rare moment of honesty, had declared before his election that if he became president and named new justices, Roe v. Wade would “automatically” go away.

And it’s a blow to the credibility of the Senate and the confirmation process that allowed senators to imagine or pretend they were voting for thoughtful, deliberative, open-minded jurists who were free of political agendas — not the right-wing ideologues they have proven to be.

This is exactly why New York was right to enshrine abortion rights in law and not be fooled by Republican politicians in the state Legislature and Congress who for years tried to get away with deploying the evasive talking point that “Roe is the law of the land.” Friday’s ruling was the end result of a half-century crusade by conservatives and the religious right to reverse Roe v. Wade, and it is not likely to be the end of the quest to strip all American women of abortion rights, one state at a time.

This is why we have called on Congress to pass a federal law protecting abortion rights, something that is only even barely possible with the House, Senate and White House all currently controlled by Democrats. It is time to force the few supposedly pro-choice Republicans in the Senate to act on their stated positions. And as we have said in the case of national voting rights legislation, the abused tradition of the filibuster cannot be allowed to stand as an obstacle to protecting people’s fundamental rights when they are being threatened in Republican-dominated legislatures around the country. Congress must dare not wait for the time when Republicans might gain control of Congress and the White House to find out how determined conservatives are to turn back the clock on progress — on marriage, on contraception, on our intimate relations, and so much more — unchecked by a Supreme Court run by like-minded reactionaries.

This is why we urge people to vote every time a primary or election rolls around. Our rights are only as strong as elected officials’ commitment to protect them. This ruling is a reminder of how fragile our rights can be — indeed, how fragile they are.