Your vote is essential to save democracy
You have heard and seen about a draft completed in February from the U.S. Supreme Court. This was after oral arguments challenging a Mississippi law passed in 2018 that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
As I write this we don’t know who leaked the document. The Court’s marshal is investigating the source of the disclosure of the draft opinion on abortion, which is genuine and was published late Monday, May 2. Chief Justice John Roberts (who did not vote with the majority) slammed the leak as an “egregious breach of trust.”
He said: “Although the document described in yesterday’s reports is authentic, it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case….to the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed.”
The three justices named by ex-president Donald Trump upheld the decision voted to kill Roe v. Wade. Prior to their confirmation all three had records that indicated their hard-right ideologies. Justice Amy Coney Barret, for example, pledged in 2006 to end “the barbaric legacy of Roe v. Wade.” In 2020 she replaced the late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had fought to protect abortion rights. Neil Gorsuch was named to the seat formerly held by the late Justice Antonin Scalia in 2017. Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the seat vacated upon Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement in 2018.
President Joe Biden, speaking on his way to Alabama to see how heavy weapons for Ukraine are manufactured, said, “If this decision holds, it’s really quite a radical decision … it’s a fundamental shift in American jurisprudence…. It basically says all the decisions you make in your private life, who you marry, whether or not you decide to conceive a child, whether or not you can have an abortion, and a range of other decisions … how you raise your child. Does this mean that in Florida they can decide to pass a law saying that same-sex marriage is not permissible, it’s against the law in Florida? It’s a fundamental shift in American jurisprudence.”
Whether by error or intent, the release of the document, which is valid, will change the course of the elections this year and in
2024. Should the GOP win either or both, overturning Roe v. Wade would just be the beginning. For 49 years women have had the right to determine if and when to bear a child. Those most affected are women who are poor and/or not white.
According to a Pew poll in late 2021, 59% say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 39% say it should be illegal in all or most cases. When term limits are part of the debate the result is inversely proportional to the trimester. In its breakdown, the report shows the most vociferous opposition to abortion comes from White Evangelical Protestants (77%), while the greatest support comes from those unaffiliated with religion (82%).
This means that a significant number of U.S. adults want women to keep this right. Should the GOP win a majority in the US House of Representatives and/or Senate this will not occur. Nor is this the only right to be dismembered. Many Trumpublican candidates also want to end single-sex marriage, inter-racial marriage, end medical help for transgenders, take rights from other members of the LGBTQ+, curtail immigration, and ignore COVID and climate change.
The 2022 and 2024 elections are the most important in a generation. Independents, Democrats and Republicans who have quit that party can and must vote against this tyranny. We must not cringe from our duty.