SCOTUS v. Roe v. Wade

1-The pro-birth movement (for they are not pro-life; that’s absurd) is driven by the talking points of evangelical Christian leaders, and white men basically, who want power over women. Their goal is not to preserve life; their goal is the subjugation of women whose freedom they find abhorrent. Put another way, (primarily Evangelical) men find it repugnant that a woman might have sex for pleasure; they think women should only have sex for the man’s pleasure. Men have long gotten a free ride in this respect but it is the woman who they want to force into paying the price. Obviously, if ‘pro-lifers’ actually cared about life, they wouldn’t ignore a child the moment it is born. If ‘pro-lifers’ actually cared about life, they would hold men accountable for their roles in pregnancies and make sure a child has both a married father and mother, per their traditional family doctrine. I could point out hypocrisy all day but as a friend said, “Technically you can’t be a hypocrite if you have no morals to begin with.” Striking Roe down is about a power struggle, a desire to revisit the times one could punish women for doing anything a man doesn’t like, thus reducing women to property once again. This isn’t about life for as everyone knows, if men could get pregnant they’re be an abortion clinic on every corner.   

2-Evangelical followers are led to believe the Bible makes a case for protected fetuses because of verses in Jeremiah and Isaiah that discuss the sanctity of these two prophets’ lives before they were born. Somehow, evangelical leaders extrapolated upon this to convince their flocks that all fetuses are in need of defense, even in cases where that fetus was conceived out of evil (incest and rape). Interestingly, Jews – using the same scriptures – do not interpret these scriptures the same way, seemingly not convinced this prohibits abortions. Enacting abortion restriction for religious reasons establishes state-sponsored religion, which the U.S. Constitution expressly forbids. The Constitution prohibits the establishment of any religion in the governance of its citizens. (Sorry, but I have to keep saying it for Republicans seemingly know the Constitution about as well as they know the Bible.) We have to assume those who serve on the SCOTUS are not stupid and know that the attack on ‘established law’ (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett even said Roe was in their confirmation hearings) is ideologically driven. For any member of the SCOTUS to vote against Roe now would be intellectually dishonest and completely destroy any trust in this government institution, as if it hasn’t been destroyed already.

3-I cannot harp on it enough: Abortion restrictions are religious in nature as there is no agreement on when life begins. Evangelicals tend to tow the line that life begins at conception, but not only is this ambiguous at best in the Bible, it is an arbitrary distinction at well. What’s special about cells dividing? Is someone no longer a person when their cells stop dividing? Moreover, why not go further back than conception to the sperm and egg? Those are living cells, too. Why not go back to the lives of potential parents? The argument gets teleologically silly quite quickly. In fact, there is no complete agreement/scientific consensus on what life is. There is no complete agreement on what a person is. (Legally, corporations are people, but to whom among us does that make sense to?) It seems like these arguments should be settled before affecting half the populations’ lives. I realize there has to be some starting point to that conversation but religion cannot answer the question of life or personhood effectively and therefore should not be an element of the debate.

4-As an aside, if it’s an aside, how much does the healthcare industry stand to benefit from in increase in pregnancies? A woman who is uninsured (a likely scenario thanks to Republicans rolling back the Affordable Care Act) is going to pay on average anywhere from $30K-$50K depending on vaginal vs. C-section birth. Then there is the cost of raising the child, the likelihood of needing childcare (because where is the father?) which isn’t covered by any insurance, and paying for higher education (though to be fair Republicans are fine with people not attending college). Many industries, if not capitalism in general, stand to benefit from an increased birth rate which has otherwise been declining for years. Knowing how Republicans feel about unregulated, unfettered capitalism (unless you speak out against them, Disney) we shouldn’t be surprised if we find out just how much the industries that benefit from the situation are donating to Republican candidates.

5-Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who – like Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said Roe v. Wade was settled law, wrote in the leaked documents that the U.S. needs a domestic supply of infants, no doubt referring to white babies. Not only is population growth nowhere in the Constitution*, which is the job of SCOTUS to interpret, population growth has nothing to do with rights or privacy which the Constitution does address. As far as population ‘growth’ is concerned, all the Constitution says is that Congress may conduct censuses if they wish, so it should be unfathomable that Barrett’s personal opinion would shape her vote on abortion, especially after she explicitly said her personal opinion would not during her confirmation hearing. Her ‘new’ position is only slightly worse than Justice Alito’s justification for overturning Roe who thinks the 14^th Amendment used in Roe that made the case for a woman’s liberty was too vague and not rooted in the text of the Constitution. Unsurprisingly, also not rooted in the text of the Constitution are civil rights for minorities and an individual’s right to bear arms when they are not part of a militia. Alito also references a 13^th century document that posits abortion as murder as part of his justification for overturning Roe. Not only does Alito want to interpret the Constitution as written by white men in the 18^th century, he also wants to interpret it through the lens of documents that have nothing to do with the Constitution. One might suppose prohibitions against murder never change yet we don’t see Alito trying to overturn the death penalty knowing there will be wrongful deaths because of wrongful convictions. SCOTUS has acted in bad faith. Now they want to cry foul when protesters show up outside their houses. It seems like someone doesn’t like having their privacy disturbed.

 

What to do? Vote, of course, but this seems to vague. Vote for Democrats and not throw away votes on third party candidates because you don’t agree with every single element of their platform? Enact federal protections for women’s privacy? Expand the court so that conservative judges cannot perjure themselves and get away with it? (Ah, so this is the ‘judicial activism’ Bill O’Reilly warned us about years ago.) Civil war?

 

I recall being an Army veteran and having signed up to fight for the rights of every man – and woman. No one told me shit was going to turn out like this. The country I fought for, that ideal, was an illusion from the get go it seems. There does not seem a way back from any of this.