I’m not a gambling man, but if I had some money to put on whether the current conservative-leaning Supreme Court of the United States is going to overturn Roe v. Wade, I would put on not likely. It’ll be a close vote, 5-4, but it will remain in law.
Mainly the landmark case won’t be overturned because conservatives know they’ll lose whatever Christian voters they need to keep the Republican Party alive. The Moral Majority, led by Jerry Falwell, back in the later part of the 20th Century used it as the way to gain members even though their roots were in opposition of Bob Jones University having to end segregation. Times have changed a lot over the nearly 50 years since Roe v. Wade both in how people view abortion as well as they view race relations.
A lot of Americans don’t claim a religion. As a matter of fact, less than half of Americans surveyed said they don’t claim a religion. A Gallup poll released in March indicated that only 47 percent surveyed claim a religion, but I’ve seen other reports say it’s closer to a third of Americans. Earlier this year, Anne Rice passed away at 80. Raised Catholic, she became an atheist for the first part of her adulthood until becoming a born-again Christian around the turn of the century. Then as of 2010, she also turned her back on Christianity.
Religion alone is in the minority. So a court using its religious preference to determine something for the majority of Americans who don’t claim a religion is the epitome of religious persecution. Also, it could and always will backfire. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Who will vote to end Roe v. Wade? Easy, Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and most definitely Amy Coney Barrett will vote to end it.
The surprise votes for it will come from Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas if I was a gambling man. Why these two? Easy, Roberts has always walked the thin line for the last 16 years mainly because he knows right and true he really shouldn’t be on the Court at least in the way he got on. After Bush v. Gore decided the 2000 election, not one single SCOTUS appointment came out during that term. With President George W. Bush re-elected, there still was an asterisk and when William Rehnquist died in 2005, the appointee would always be tainted.
Worse, the implication that Roberts sit at the head of the table as Chief Justice almost seemed a subtle slap in the face to the Supreme Court. After that W. got to choose Alito. When Barack Obama became President, he chose Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Merrick Garland was almost a Justice but the Republican Party did some shady tactics that is leading to their downfall.
And Trump made the Supreme Court a joke with the appointments of Kavanaugh and Barrett. Remember the SCOTUS doesn’t have to have just nine people. And five considering a law seems very undemocratic. Roberts knows good and well that if Roe v. Wade is shut down and he votes for it, the Citizens United ruling will come back and bite him in the ass big-time.
In two weeks, an election year starts. Overturning Roe v. Wade in an election year will result in SuperPACs coming out of everywhere to get more Democrats not only in federal offices but state offices. It’ll also affect the Republican Party in 2024. There might be a honeymoon period of Republicans but it won’t last until 2024. By then, another abortion case will be before them. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office may issue an indictment against Trump. Even if it doesn’t stick, it’ll be another stain.
Trump is too busy thumping his chest foolishly rambling about he “made it legal to say ‘Merry Christmas’ again.” And he’s losing his popularity each day. Since he spear-headed the belief that Covid-19 isn’t so bad as the common cold or flu, it’s led to over 800,000 deaths, the most in any country. That’s 800,000 people who won’t be at Christmas dinner this year. That’s 800,000 people who could have voted Republican. With the Omicron Variant coming, it could be over 1,000,000 people by the November general elections and 2,000,000 or more by 2024.
Roberts is a politician. He knows which hand to play and which to fold. So does Thomas. He may not be the oldest on the Supreme Court but he’s the longest serving with 30 years on the bench. And it’s been tainted since day one in part to the confirmation hearing in which it was reported he sexual harassed Anita Hill.
Thomas has been the face of black conservatives. That’s both good and bad for so many reasons I won’t get into. Thomas may live another 10 years to make it as old as Justice Stephen Breyer who is 83, or, God forbid, he may not even make it to 2022. He wants his legacy to be more than the Anita Hill incident, especially considering almost every week, if not every day, another famous celebrity or politician is accused of sexual assault, sexual harassment or inappropriate actions.
Standing firm on keeping Roe v. Wade as the official law on abortion probably won’t win Thomas any new fans, but at least it will be the right thing for him to do. The old saying goes that “A broken clock is right twice a day,” and Justice Thomas will be that broken clock.
But, like I said, I’m not a gambling man and this isn’t a sure thing. Republican-leaning states have passed draconian laws to make abortion illegal that it may hurt them in 2022 and the SCOTUS can sit back and let the states re-write their laws in 2023. The Republican Party is crumbling on its inside. And so are evangelical Christianity and Christianity in general. Laws should reflect the current times, not what people 50, 100 or 200 years ago thought.
One footnote I will add is that maybe Roe v. Wade needs to be taken down for people to see just how wrong it was to end it. Like I said, I’m sure the abortion issue will come back as something in the years to follow. Conservatives and Christians won’t be able to exploit Norma McCorvey and her changing her mind later to prove that abortion is bad because people have a change of thought. McCorvey was “Jane Roe” in that landmark case and never had an abortion.
She reversed her thoughts on abortion as all people are allowed to do. Yet when you read what she intended to do to obtain an abortion in Texas, it should make you angry. McCorvey said she had falsely reported she had been raped by black men to be granted an abortion after becoming pregnant for a third time.
If anything else, it connects the Moral Majority with its racial roots. A lot of people in Texas were probably lucky law enforcement didn’t believe her because a lot of innocent men would’ve found themselves hanging at the end of a rope. Or they could’ve been dragged from a pick-up truck until they died. Or they might have even been castrated with their genitalia cut off and bled to death. McCorvey often switched her mind, saying she was paid to be “Jane Roe.”
Women face many health issues if they get pregnant. I have a friend who had to get a hysterectomy because she has prior health issues that would kill her and the fetus if she was pregnant.
But even if it isn’t health-related, a lot of women get pregnant because they think they found the perfect man, but he balks and leaves her. So, now, even if the women have the children, they have to fight through the courts for child support.
I don’t have an opinion about abortion because I’m not a woman. I’m not anti-abortion or pro-choice, because as a man, I don’t have to make that choice. The only choice I have to make is to buy condoms or face the outcome. The other choice I have is on who to elect to ensure all women have that choice what to do with their own bodies.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 
It all comes down to the fact that they want the right to kill you, but you can’t “kill” something that was created by your own body.
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