1. Supreme Court
If you’ve only recently begun to notice the work of the U.S. Supreme Court, you might be forgiven for thinking that the game is played like that: Who’s in office when positions are vacant will nominate. as many ideologies as possible, who will change and shape American law to reflect their personal beliefs about up and down, left and right, right and wrong.
However, it’s not like that. Judges of the Supreme Court must follow the principle staring at the decision, which means that the ruling on the law is consistent with precedent, or how previous iterations of the Court have held. That is not to say that the Court cannot create new laws, new rights. That’s what the Court did in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), finding that although the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly provide for privacy the way it exercises freedom of speech and assembly, , but there is still an implicit right to privacy inherent in (and predating) the Constitution. That right has been the basis for Court decisions about the right to use contraception, the right to abortion, and the right to marry anyone one chooses. And while the Court has, since the dawn of our nation, established new fundamental rights, the Court has never taken them away so far.
Fast-forward to 2022. The current SCOTUS includes a trusted guy accused of attempted sexual assault, a trusted guy accused of harassing his co-worker, and a woman who was part of it. of the The Catholic denomination calls women “handmaidens.“That’s a bit too much, even for Hollywood, who would inevitably turn down such an offer because it’s too far-fetched.
And so, thanks to a block of Trump-appointed judges, what rights you have now depends on the state you live in. Blue state? You can be fine, for now. Red status? God help you. Because SCOTUS had transferred a woman’s body to a group of white men in the Indian states, who knew nothing about the female reproductive system and promoted the “right” of a fetus to with living women. The fetus wins if the mother’s life is at risk, the fetus wins in cases of rape, incest, and any other horrible scenario you can imagine, even if you are a 10 year old rape victim. Once that fetus is born? If it’s a biological female, she immediately loses any and all rights to her bodily autonomy. It’s ironic.
So let’s be clear about what happens. Many women will get very sick and many will die. Because outlawing abortion will not end abortion. It will only push it deeper underground. It’s clear from everything from Anita Hill’s testimony to Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings to Twitter responders who like to make logically misleading comments, that this country doesn’t take it seriously. women are, in fact, treated like second-class citizens. ole ‘US of A. Now it’s just official.
Happy Wednesday.
