No surprise Roe under fire from conservative Supreme Court
I am not at all surprised by the Roe v. Wade shocker, courtesy of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft decision.
Just as I wasn’t surprised by the ongoing assaults on voting rights and affirmative action.
Just as I won’t be for the inevitable assaults to come on gay rights or immigrant rights.
What I don’t understand is why no one on the prochoice side saw this coming. The proverbial writing was on the wall: Donald Trump promised he would change the court by nominating conservative judges and with Republican help, he did just that.
Did pro-choice advocates believe that abortion opponents wouldn’t dare try to roll back Roe? They’ve been plotting that for the 50 years that the law has stood.
There were earlier attempts to codify Roe v. Wade, but that, more than any time in history, was the moment to lock it down. Massachusetts was smart enough to do so with passage of the Roe Act in 2020, but 26 other states are without laws legalizing abortion.
And now as we wait for the upcoming final decision from the High Court, few expect it to change from the leaked version. That doesn’t mean there won’t be a battle royale against the efforts to end abortion rights. There is still time for Chief Justice John Roberts to make it right. But will he convince his colleagues to move to a more moderate approach in the next draft? I wonder if the fact that two-thirds of the country supports Roe v. Wade will make any difference.
Is it really fair that five justices get to overrule the nation’s majority opinion? Lots of questions abound.
Something has to be done about the Supreme Court, but I don’t think adding more justices to accommodate the culture of the day is the answer.
Trump nominee Neal Gorsuch made the cut after Republicans blocked the nomination of Barack Obama’s choice of Merrick Garland. Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing was in some way a page out of Justice Clarence Thomas’s playbook as both were accused of inappropriate conduct with women. But they made it on the bench anyway. And
Justice Amy Coney Barrett was fast-tracked to the high court. Sadly, politics has played an outsized hand in the makeup of the Supreme Court. Even as the members pretend that it doesn’t.
No two ways about it, the Dems got “played.” At the same time Trump and his Republican enablers kept Congress busy with two impeachments, the handling of the COVID pandemic, the Jan. 6 riot and assorted outrages. In the midst of all the madness, I feel Roe was obviously not the priority it should have been.
Shouldn’t we have a right to expect even a modicum of transparency from members of the highest court in the land? Where are their checks and balances?
The leak that Justice Roberts sees as a violation, I see as a kind of revelation. Who knows if Alito forces didn’t drop it as a trial balloon?
We talk about embracing democracy but we have a Supreme Court system that operates more like a secret society, using democracy as a cover as they decide to deny women the right to choose.
They claim that they must have some secrecy to do their jobs. I’m not so sure and frankly never was. Like Sen. Elizabeth Warren and tens of thousands of women, I am pretty damn angry about where we are.
The fight ahead to maintain a woman’s right to choose will be bitter and sometimes brutal. But as women we must stand together. Bottom line is that this will impact ALL women. Rich and poor, suburban and urban, Black, white and Latina. We must be in lockstep, even in our anger.
I feel a chill up my spine when I hear some prochoice women say that this situation will “force women to have children.” It brings to mind a troubling past amid a not so certain future for women who today also fight for what should be the basics like affordable child care.
For sure, Alito and company’s sneak attack against a woman’s right to choose is yet another assault against women … one that adds insult to injury. And one that we cannot let stand lest we are OK with forces whose goal is to turn back the clock on women’s hard fought victories.