Roe vs Wade vs America (UPDATED)

 

Over the last few years, all credible national polls (Gallup, NNBC, etc.) have reflected results ranging from 52% to 66% indicating that a majority of Americans oppose reversing the 7-2 the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision, Roe vs Henry Wade (Dallas County District Attorney). Roe Court struck down a Texas law that banned abortions, which was the rule in most of the United States since the late 19th century. The case followed a rising tide of protests in favor of women’s rights in the 1960s and several Supreme Court cases liberalizing the distribution of birth control methods. In Roe, the Court held that abortion was a basic right to all women, derived from a right to privacy implicit under the “equal protection” clause in the Constitution (the 14th Amendment). 

Where women’s rights had been expanded in recent years, a new right-wing rubber stamp quasi legislative Supreme Court seems poised to retract those rulings. Right now, there is a very important document leak (reported by the May 2nd Politico): the Court is considering a draft majority opinion from Associate Justice Samuel Alito, reversing Roe v Wade, in which Alito is purportedly credited as holding that Roe was “egregiously wrong” from its inception. On May 3rd, Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the authenticity of the document but did not confirm that this version is the latest draft. He has called for an immediate investigation into the leak. Is reversal a sure thing? The New York Times (May 3rd) suggests that while the probabilities favor reversal, assuming the Politico leak is an accurate current draft, there is time still for a change of heart:

“Every Republican appointee on the court other than Chief Justice John Roberts has voted to overturn Roe, Politico reported: Samuel Alito (who wrote the draft), Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas. The three Democratic appointees will evidently dissent. Roberts had not made up his mind at the time of the draft’s writing, but his vote is not crucial.

“The biggest caveat is that justices sometimes change their minds, while they are reading and circulating draft opinions among themselves. In 2012, for example, Roberts changed his stance on whether to overturn Obamacare, as CNN’s Joan Biskupic later reported.” The ramifications of a reversal, still seemingly probable, are overwhelming. The majority will in America is under assault in a new populist conservative wave of “anything goes” efforts to solidify evangelical fundamentalism as the law of the land. Already, the supermajority of recent religious rights cases heard by the Supreme Court have favored the rights of religious organizations and those holding extremist views.  As my April 27th Democracy, Anocracy or Plutocracy? blog points out, and as international rights organizations increasingly find, the United States is not a representative democracy. We are a flawed democracy, with plutocratic indicia, moving towards autocracy. Minority rule. Aside from inherent biases – like the fact that 30% of voters elect 50% of the US Senate, which is further distorted by the filibuster rule – there is a powerful movement in this nation as red states with mostly elderly white male legislators place white Christian voters in charge of it all.  Red states have joined in a virtual lockstep march to limit minority rights (except for that white evangelical minority), fighting culture wars, banning books, making voting exceptionally difficult for people of color (voter suppression, exclusion or not even counting such votes, and gerrymandering) and generally taking racial, gender and ethnic values back to the “pre-civil rights” era of the 1950s and earlier. “Equal protection under the law” is their enemy.  There are other cases in the Court’s crosshairs or sweeping rising right-wing legislation in red America… cases involving religious dictates opposing equal protection rulings… like Obergefell v. Hodges (a 2015 case that established gay marriage) or Loving vs Virginia (a 1963 case that struck down state laws banning interracial marriage) as a short list starting point. To make matters so much worse, literally putting corporate America in a no-win situation, is the legislation pioneered by right-wing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, where local corporations openly opposing controversial pending or passed new laws are specifically targeted to lose rights and benefits under punitive legislation. Earlier conservative rulings are the tea leaves for Roe. Indeed, in the 5-4 Obergefell ruling, all four justices who voted against the ruling wrote their own dissenting opinions: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Thus, it is no secret that Alito finds the application of the “equal protection” clause to be severely limited, with no leeway to determine wider social issues in changing times. Climate change and minority rights have been seriously deprioritized just as pandemic realities have moved from medical professionals into the chambers and halls of ill-prepared single judges and legislatures riding high on a “perfect wave” of disinformation and misinformation. To understand where extreme societies go where a cultural/religious minority is given the mantle of supreme authority, we have only to look to the struggle between Russia (and its crushed dissidents) and Ukraine. Will the voter apathy that seems to be settling on younger voters, watching a powerless Joe Biden face the iron will of a white religious minority, reinforce this autocratic takeover by simply not participating in the voting process? Is reversing Roe enough to bring out that younger vote? Has the US Supreme Court lost its claim to neutrality and legitimacy as it trips all over itself reversing equal protection cases? Will the red and swing state tide against minority rights, dissenting views and secular goals prevail? Can insurrection by the right be legitimized? Stay tuned.             I’m Peter Dekom, and if you want to know how civil wars and roiling violent civil protests begin, just keep following the news that we are, at least so far, able to read, see and hear.