This column, from the weekly opinion piece MATTER OF FACT, first appeared on BrooklynReporter.com, the Home Reporter and Spectator dated July 1, 2022
Last Friday, on June 24, the Supreme Court reversed nearly 50 years of precedent in overturning Roe v. Wade and eliminating the federally guaranteed right to abortion, the first time in the history of the United States that a constitutionally guaranteed right has been taken away. The decision to leave the legality of abortion up to each state came the day after the same justices ruled that concealed carry laws for handguns could not be left up to the states.
Differences of opinion on the bench between justices appointed by Republican and Democratic presidents is nothing new, but the ideological differences that are deeply political from the six Republican-appointed Justices recently, are extreme. In addition to ideology and politics, their views are, quite plainly with respect to abortion, deeply religious ones, as the anti-abortion movement is almost entirely one based on religion. Religious freedom is a foundational right in this country, so long as those views are not imposed on others, particularly by the government.
A Yahoo News/YouGov poll found that only 33 percent of Americans support the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe. According to a CBS News/YouGov poll, six in ten Americans favor a federal law legalizing abortion nationwide and 64 percent said they would like abortion to be legal in their state in all or most cases.
Continually, the will of the American people is being subverted. It has happened with the Supreme Court decision to end the constitutional right to abortion when an overwhelming majority of Americans support that right. It has happened with the decision that will make it easier for anyone to legally carry a handgun in cities like New York when an overwhelming majority of Americans are in favor of further restricting who can conceal carry and where.
“When you do not accept the certified results of a settled election or you take part in an insurrection to overthrow the government or you conspire to plan a coup, you are an extremist who has decided that the rules no longer apply to your cause.”
Citation….
The highest court’s ability to issue extremist decisions that run contrary to the will of the American people are due to presidential election results that have similarly not reflected the will of the people. Five of the current Supreme Court justices were appointed by two Republican presidents who ascended to the White House after elections in which they did not receive the most votes from the American people.
In Justice Thomas’s concurring opinion, he made it clear this Supreme Court intends to further roll back hard-fought-for rights, stating that the court should specifically reconsider the rulings that protect contraception, same-sex relationships, and same-sex marriages. Thomas specifically mentioned the three privacy-related cases that created precedents for each of those issues, while deciding to omit the Loving v. Virginia case that protected the right to interracial marriage, which is interesting being that he and his wife are part of an interracial marriage and overturning that one would affect him.
Seven in ten Americans support same-sex marriage, yet this court seems poised to take that right away. They seem prepared to overturn the precedent that protects the right of consenting adults to have same-sex relations in the privacy of their own homes. They seem ready to strip the right of all Americans to decide whether they can use contraception.
Abortion should be the choice of whomever is pregnant and their reasoning is nobody’s business. Abortions for medically necessary reasons or in the instance of rape or incest are a small percentage of all abortions, but the fact that the anti-abortion minority want to restrict or criminally prohibit even those, shows the extremism of it all. Extremists feel they have a righteous duty that is above all else, including the rules.
When you do not accept the certified results of a settled election or you take part in an insurrection to overthrow the government or you conspire to plan a coup, you are an extremist who has decided that the rules no longer apply to your cause. Most of the Republican party has decided that is what they are about now. Winning at all costs, the rules be damned, the will of the American people be damned.
If Republicans win back the White House and both houses of Congress, their first order of business will be to rush through legislation to criminalize abortion nationwide. And Mitch McConnell will immediately end the filibuster rule to ensure it passes the Senate.
