Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Supreme Court Overturns Roe
The Supreme Court of the United States announced a ruling on Friday that overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that recognized a right to abort a pregnancy, a ruling that undoes 50 years of medical and legal history. Protesters filled the streets, and politicians found the nearest microphone to voice their support or otherwise to the decision. But that will do no good. The Supreme Court has laid bare what the Republican agenda has for a foundation. It is not principle, nor is it tradition. It is simply raw power. The patina of constitutional government proved to be a thin, single-coat of varnish easily rubbed away. The court did what it did because it can. There is a majority on the court interested only in power and its exercise, to mirror the attitudes in the Congress and state legislatures. The only principle now relevant is who has the most votes in the judiciary. Democracy itself, however, is withering.
The decision of the court in Dobbs v. Jackson (the case that grew out of a Mississippi law that deliberately violated the law as defined in Roe) states that there is no right to privacy in the US Constitution, which had existed under the doctrine of substantive due process. The states now have the power and legitimacy of the Dobbs case to ban abortions or otherwise regulate them. Several states have already made it illegal to undertake any termination of a pregnancy. That is bad enough, but the decision also will have ramifications far beyond dealing with pregnancies.
If the states have the power to demand a woman allow a fetus to grow inside her womb regardless her desires, the states have the ultimate authority when it comes to the control of human beings\' bodies. It is not much of a stretch to argue that if the states can require something to stay in a human body, they can require something to be removed. Under the principle of eminent domain, the states could condemn a person\'s liver, kidneys or lungs and require them to be transplanted into another person. Involuntary organ donation may sound implausible, even ridiculous, but the argument is clearly there based on the Dobbs decision.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Thomas wrote that the right to contraception and same-sex marriage are now on the chopping block. Justice Alito, writing for the majority, argued at least in four places in his decision that these rights were different from abortion and so were safe. One simply does not and cannot believe him.
Where the lack of principle kicks in is obvious when one considers the same court\'s ruling in New York City\'s gun control law which the court struck down last week as well. In that case, the court argued that states and local government cannot be allowed to trample on the rights of the citizens, that the federal government must step in to protect them. Meanwhile in Dobbs, the court said that the federal government must be deferential to the states. Well, which is it? And where does the line get drawn (faintly, in pencil)?
When polled, the American people favored keeping Roe by a 70-30 split. Some portion of that was lukewarm to the idea, but a good 20-30% could be described as ardent supporters of the right to terminate a pregnancy. Those people are asking what can be done? They are too late to affect matters. Constitutionally, it will be a long way back. The pro-choice crowd will need to control the House and Senate as well as the White House in order to reverse the court\'s decision. Even then, the court may simply decide, in a future case, that any codification is unconstitutional. There is nothing that can be done to stop that within the confines of the constitution. Only an amendment, which would require ¾ of the state legislatures to approve it after both houses of Congress pass it by 2/3 majorities, could do that, and the votes are never going to be there given gerrymandering in the states.
The only other option is extra-constitutional action, a road that America does not want to go down now or ever. But if it doesn\'t happen on this issue, it may well happen on another. When that happens, America\'s future is to look like Northern Ireland did in 1973.
© Copyright 2022 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
|
|
|
