With news this week the U.S. Supreme Court is drafting an opinion that essentially overturns Roe v. Wade, conservatives and especially the Republican Party may be taken a premature victory lap. While the Court hasn’t officially announced it, the brief behind prepared by Justice Samuel Alito seems to show that he and Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanagh, Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barret voted in a 5-4 decision overturning it.
Unfortunately, this may have been a sleeping dog that should’ve let lie. Abortion became a hot dog issue under the Moral Majority, formed by such awful human beings as Rev. Jerry Falwell. And I use “human beings” and “Rev.” very loosely. The issue really had nothing to do with abortion but to stop racial integration of all colleges and universities. Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., was still opposed to ending segregation.
The only problem was by the time the Moral Majority argued a private Christian university shouldn’t be forced by the federal government to change its policies, it was the last of its kind. And people were pretty okay with integration even though racial tensions were and are still around.
So, afraid of looking like the bigots and racists they clearly are, the religious right hopped on the abortion issue and gather momentum throughout the 1980s and 1990s. And just like opposition to integration, more people are supporting abortion, even if they don’t have liberal progressive views.
In many cases, abortion is used to help women who are pregnant who may die. Very rarely anymore do you hear about a woman dying during childbirth (at least in countries where abortion is legal), because we’ve advanced our healthcare to notice when a woman’s life might be at risk. Yet however, doctors are still hesitant to perform hysterectomies and tubal ligation without a husband’s consent.
There are several things wrong with the Supreme Court’s ruling. First off, it’s not the will of the people. A surveyed 69 percent of people are in favor of abortion. But when has the majority even an issue? If you would look at all the people who voted to overturn it, only Thomas was appointed by a U.S. President who won the popular vote. He was appointed in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush.
Alito was appointed by President George W. Bush in 20005 and began serving in 2006. While Bush won the 2004 election with the majority of the vote, he didn’t win the 2000 election with the majority of the vote. So, ergo, his appointment has an asterisk. You could argue, Bush would’ve ran again in 2004 but there’s where the grey area of his nomination comes in. Would Alito really have even been considered even if it was another Republican who won in 2004 over Al Gore?
Then, you have Gorsuch who was appointed by Donald Trump. The Court remained with eight Justices for the majority of the year 2016 following the death of Antonin Scalia on Feb. 13 of said year because Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) refused to allow a confirmation hearing for Barack Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland. McConnell argued that during an election year, a Justice shouldn’t be appointed by a President. This was controversial then and it remains so. Gorsuch got in through an unfair and unprecedented loophole.
Also since Trump didn’t win the majority of the vote in 2016, his appointments of Kavanagh and especially Coney Barrett are questionable. Coney Barrett was quickly nominated and confirmed prior to the 2020 election where Trump neither received the popular vote nor the needed electoral votes. It also caused McConnell to backtrack on his opposition to Garland (and really Obama).
Secondly, Gorsuch and Kavanagh overturning Roe may be considered perjury since they both testified under oath they wouldn’t overturn it during their confirmation hearings. Is this an impeachable offense? It could be. It should be. Bill Clinton was impeached over lying under oath. Will Congress do something about? Quite possibly if the Democrats get the majority of the House and the Senate this year.
But this also throws into question whether or not the overturning sticks if two Justices votes are tainted and they are removed. Where do you draw the line between something that should remain a decision and something that should be thrown out for a violation. This happens in a lot of legal cases. If a prosecutor or a law officer is caught lying under oath, it causes a relook at certain cases. The same applies for judges at the lower level. So why should the Highest Court be above the rules?
Normally, if this was a sports team caught making a violation, any wins the team accrued while operating under the violation would be null and void. This also begs the question if it’s determined that Trump’s administration had worked to orchestrate the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection coup, does that mean his appointments of Gorsuch, Kavanagh and Coney Barrett remain. Because essentially, Trump is now a traitor and seditionist. A lot of people think that Coney Barrett was only appointed so quickly to do a repeat of the Bush v. Gore decision, which was also determined by a mostly conservative Court.
While many states have already had closing times for filing for running for elected offices, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, there are still 12 states that haven’t closed their filing dates as of this news. Those states are Alaska, Conneticut, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin. Unlike the President elections, the House and the Senate only need to have a majority of a party’s representation. Both the Democrats and Republicans know that’s all they need.
So, it comes as no surprise that the Court wasn’t planning on releasing this announcement until late June or even early July, when it’s very likely a lot of states wouldn’t have anymore open dates for filing. I don’t believe this announcement being released during the first week of May was a coincidence. If there are any people out there interesting in running for an elected office, even at the state level, they still have time to file.
Overturning Roe v. Wade doesn’t make abortion illegall across the board. It just pushes the decision back to the states and allows more conservative states to pass even harsher and stricter laws. So, it’s just not at the national level. Many state legislators win re-election almost by default because no one bothers to file. This is what both sides are hoping for.
And with the exception of Indiana and Ohio according to the NCSL, all other 48 states have primaries between now and July with many even later in the summer. In Texas’ case, they have primary run-offs scheduled for later in the summer months.
Sadly, this might not even help the GOP as much as it thinks even if they’re hoping for big support from conservative Christians. In many ways, this has been the carrot they dangled in front of conservative Christians. Would Trump have been allowed if Roe v. Wade was overturned? I think not.
Since the winter of 2020, over a million people have died of Covid-19 pandemic with other survivors having lasting effects. Healthcare is a huge issue now. Abortion is also a healthcare issue. It’s not just promiscuous women like the stereotype is often thought. Pregnancy can kill people. Even if a married couple has sex with a condom or contraceptives, it could break. Or a man’s vasectomy might still cause some semen to get through.
While we have Plan B, not a lot of women will know they are pregnant until it’s too late to do anything about it under some state laws. Rape and incest are still a problem. With Tennessee trying to do away with the age limits on when people can get married, this obviously has to do with rape. If a 20-something man can marry a girl aged 11-17, then technically, she can’t file charges against him for rape. Also, she can’t file for divorce until age 18. While spousal immunity more complex than that, I also think it’s a way for strict conservatived Christians to “make it right” when their young daughters are impregnated.
People who view a pregnancy and child as “punishment” for a woman having any type of sex are savage in their beliefs. This is about controlling a woman’s body even if she is an adult, happily married. In other words, the man has final say. With the economy the way it is, many Millennials, Gen Zers and even Gen Xers haven’t thought of having children. It’s way too expensive nowadays. There’s also no maternity leave at their jobs and child care is more expensive than what they are making at their current jobs.
Some conservative or even moderate voters may use this as a chance to vote some people and parties out. I’ve been saying for several years that Libertarians will some day be the next party. This points Libertarians in an odd predicament. Who do they want to get behind? If they don’t support what the current Republican Party is doing, then they must align themselves with the Democrat Party and its progressive agenda.
On the flip side, the Republican Party has admitted they really have no agenda but to remain in power as long as they want. It must’ve been a real eye opener in 1992 when many of the votes that would’ve gone toward the elder Bush, went to third party candidate H. Ross Perot. Even more in all but one Presidential election dating back to 1992, Americans have chosen a more liberal candidate.
This is mainly because conservativism is a dying policy to work against the popularity socialism might have in the 1950s and 1960s. It’s not on its last leg, it’s slouching on the floor like the human torso in Freaks trying to stay in control. Most Baby Boomers were raised in conservative households until things changeed in the 1980s as the Cold War ended. Conservatives didn’t have the threat of a nuclear war and Soviet invasion to keep electing people like Ronald Reagan and the elder Bush.
This proved in 1992, Bush and the Republican Party had no policy or agenda here in America except try to remain in a romanticized past that really never was. And they needed to try to remain in power, by any means necessary. And they aligned themselves too closely with the evangelicals. This has become their most dangerous part.
In 2021, a Gallup poll reported less than half of U.S. adult believe in any religion and those that do, do not associate with a partricular church or religious place of worship. Most people have seen the dangers of extreme Christian doctrine in America and they don’t associate with it. Same-sex marriage became common in 2015 and now, we have commercials with same-sex couples who are not only interracial but one of them is pregnant. The problem is mostly Xers, Zers and Milllennials really don’t care about religion and “traditional family values.” We have people part of the LGBTQIA community in our circle of friends or close family.
And this is not to say all Boomers seem to align themselves with strict conservative Christian views. Ironically, neither abortion nor same-sex relationships are mentioned in the Bible. But by their age range, more people of the Baby Boomer generation seem conservative.
This is why more white women married to white men tend to vote more conservative. But that might change this year. In the past, it’s been mostly women who are POC who have been the key voters. But this year could just be the year of the woman.
More women are choosing not to have children and not even to get married. Mainly their argument is they don’t want to be a surrogate mom to their partners. And I understand that. There’s a phrase called “weaponized incompetence” that is gathering steam in which men “pretend” to not know how to do things and feigh ignorance of it. A lot of it is simple things such as laundry, doing the dishes or grocery shopping.
Since overturning Roe v. Wade affects all women who are still able to get pregnant, it’s highly likely some women who have usually voted conservative to cast their votes for Libertarians if they can’t vote Democrat. And if these votes for Libertarians take away the votes from the Republicans, it will allow Democrats to succeed.
But who knows if this will happen?
Republicans don’t really have an agenda. They’re all about the wins. And they see this as a win. Even though they may lose a lot in the elections, they’ll still view it as a win.
Will President Joe Biden stack the courts with two more appointees to get a majority vote? Chief John Roberts was appointed by the younger Bush but he wisely voted against overturning. Roberts is smart enough to know when to vote the correct way, even though I don’t agree with many of his previous votes.
Thomas, himself, was recently in the hospital earlier this year. At 73, he’s not young anymore. And if we find about more about his wife, Ginni, and her involvement in Jan. 6, it’s likely he could be pressured to step down. But I don’t see it. If that happens, Biden can appoint a new Justice. A lot can happen between now and the end of 2024.
This is why it’s so important for the Democrats to control the Senate. Thomas is the oldest Justice on the Court but he’s still relatively young in comparison with the ages of others. But he’s been on the court for 31 years and that’s too long for any person to serve on the Court regardless of their views.
And in some ways, maybe Roe v. Wade needs to be overturned and refiled by someone who remained a pro-choice person. Roe was short for Jane Roe and used to identify Texas resident Norma McCorvey. Her case has always been sketchy as she tried to fabricate she had been raped by a black man which under Texas law at the time would’ve made an abortion more obtainable. McCorvey, who died in 2017, became an Evangelical Protestant later in life and more important, an anti-abortion activist. She became the model for that movement for someone who had changed their mind and thus why abortion wasn’t the right option.
If we are going to have a case set a precedent, it should be one in which the opposition can’t tear it apart. Or we could just have a federal law that prevents states from stopping women. It took three years for Roe v. Wade to go to the Court. Who knows how much longer a Court case could go, while in the mean time women die during childbirth or have to suffer the pain of internal bleeding by hemorraging.
Sadly, Americans don’t do anything for the better unless there’s a death. Yet, we didn’t do much to prevent deaths from Covid or from gun violence. For those saying they’re pro-life, they need to be pro-life across the board. They’re anti-women and it’s no surprise many men come out in opposition.
Men shouldn’t have any say in this matter. I don’t care what anyone thinks. It should work like the tax-exempt status for religious organizations. Keep your nose out. But like elderly people who refuse to pay school taxes, they think they should have a say-so in the matter. Their best ways to stop pregnancies is to have sex with condoms that work; or help your partner obtain their own birth control and contraceptives.
Or men could have all the unprotected sex they want. All they have to do is get a vasectomy. But I know what they’d say, why should anyone tell them what to do with their bodies?
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 