Roe v Wade-Only your Vote can Save America

Political religious terrorists think THEY should control women’s bodies regarding abortion

abortion, Roe v Wade, Alito, Supreme Court — Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito wrote an ultra-conservative draft opinion overturning Roe v Wade, the prevailing court case giving women the right to choose on the issue of abortion. When Politico published the document, a political firestorm ensued.

This is what political firestorms are made of. It’s the first of 98 pages in a draft opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. It essentially overturns nearly 50 years of federal law on abortion rights, better known as Roe v Wade.

If the draft opinion becomes a full court opinion, it’s hard to overstate how this affects the culture war that is consuming our nation.

Not What the People Want

Abortion rights, public opinion polls, Newsweek — Multiple public opinion polls in recent years show the overwhelming majority of Americans favor some form of a woman’s right to choose on the issue of abortion.

Poll after poll shows the majority of Americans favor some form of a woman’s right to an abortion. Public opinion doesn’t matter to the Radical White Christian Right.

Roe v Wade, a Supreme Court decision, was based on a Texas case. The court held a woman has a right to choose on the issue of abortion based on privacy considerations. It’s been the law of the land since 1973.

Texas is now waiting to impose perhaps the most restrictive abortion law in the nation if the Alito opinion stands.

Who Told?

Clutching Pearls, feigned shock, melodrama — When the Alito draft opinion on overturning Roe v Wade leaked, Republicans became upset about the leak itself, not the repeal of a woman’s right to choose on abortion. (Image: Public Domain)

The Radical Right is clutching its pearls, not because the Supreme Court is poised to take away an individual liberty, not because it is essentially endorsing government-mandated pregnancy, but because somebody snitched, somebody leaked. Here’s how talking-head legal expert Jonathan Turley put it on Fox News:

“What occurred with this leak was an unspeakably unethical act.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was shocked, Shocked! that there was a leak from the Supreme Court:

“Last night, a shocking, shocking new breach. Somebody, likely somebody inside the court itself, leaked a confidential internal draft to the press, almost certainly in an effort to stir up an inappropriate pressure campaign to sway an outcome.”

In a town where news leaks are a way of life, a leak from the Supreme Court is unusual, but not unheard of.

Ironically, the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling was also leaked in 1973.

Time magazine published the crux of the historic ruling a week before it was publicly released by the Court.

For decades, the Supreme Court was literally the court of last resort to protect individual rights against the massive power of federal and state governments.

With the Alito opinion the Supreme Court is poised to roll back an individual right.

Alito, is regarded as a zealous, right-wing political hack by his critics. He is fond of looking backward.

Finding Legal Precedent in the 1600s

Alito’s draft opinion reaches back to the laws of the Middle Ages to justify abolishing the right to choose.

Matthew Hale, 1600s, witchcraft, England — Sir Matthew Hale was the equivalent of a Supreme Court Chief Justice in England in the 1600s. Hale supported witchcraft executions because there were laws against it, which, in his mind, meant witchcraft must be real. (Image: Public Domain)

He cites Sir Matthew Hale, the chief judge of British courts in the 1600s. One of Hale’s claims to fame is he ordered the executions of two women in 1662—for witchcraft. Hale’s reasoning was witchcraft must exist because there were laws against it back then.

Alito, The Shining, maniac, women's rights — After the leak of the harsh draft opinion overturning Roe V Wade, the author, Justice Samuel Alito, a hardcore political conservative, was seen as resembling the homicidal maniac in the 1980 horror film, The Shining. (Image: Vince Wade, Warner Bros.)

Alito is a hardcore conservative—you know, the ones who yammer about getting the government off the backs of the people?

Yet he is proposing in a legal ruling that it be left to each state’s politicians to decide what a woman can or cannot do with her own body. Some are calling it government-coerced pregnancy.

Here was President Biden’s reaction:

“It concerns me a great deal that, we’re gonna, after fifty years, decide a woman doesn’t have a right to choose.”

Meanwhile, at the citadel of citizen rights rollbacks, Justice Alito made a feeble attempt to re-assure America that other personal freedoms aren’t under attack, but at the Supreme Court precedent is precedent until it is not.

Right to Choose, Roe v Wade, privacy, women's rights — Protests broke out in cities across the country when the Alito draft opinion on Roe v Wade leaked. Many women are upset that the Supreme Court seems poised to take away a woman’s right that that been “settled” law for nearly 50 years. (Image: Jasmine-Unsplash)

While Roe v Wade is rooted in what we used to think is the Right to Privacy, the Alito opinion opens the door for eliminating other contraception methods.

Falling Dominoes

Emily Berman, associate professor of law at the University of Houston said, “It’s hard to not think that Roe is just the first in a line of dominoes.” Another female law professor, Kimberly Wehle of the University of Baltimore concluded, “From a legal perspective, if Roe falls, it’s hard to see what else will still stand.”

Here’s what she means:

Miscarriages could be classified as a criminal act. A woman would have to prove she didn’t have an abortion. Far-fetched, you say? More on that in a moment.

Alito’s opinion opens the door for same-sex marriages to be criminalized.

Along those same lines, interracial marriage could be outlawed. It used to be a crime in the Civil War era, the good old days of White Christian supremacy.

All Birth Control At Risk

The fanatics of the Radical Religious Right could even make it a crime to use birth control.

In what passes for the legal reasoning of Justice Samuel Alito, it’s up to each state to decide if contraceptives should be outlawed. The Alito opinion was based on a case that began in Mississippi.

This is Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves on NBC’s Meet the Press on Mother’s Day being asked if his state will take the next step and consider banning contraception:

“Q: If there is legislation brought to you to ban contraception, would you sign it?

A: Well, I don’t think that’s going to happen in Mississippi. I’m sure they’ll have those conversations in other states…

Q: But you’re not answering the question…

A: As is always the case with things, well, that’s always the case, there’s, there’s so many things that we can talk about.

He wouldn’t answer the question.

As right-wingers like Tate Reeves keep pushing America backward, it’s useful to explore where this could lead. A good place to look is El Salvador, a Central American country in the iron grip of a right-wing dictatorship.

El Salvador dictator Nayib Bukele has been called the Donald Trump of Central America. Bukele calls himself the world’s coolest dictator.

No matter what you call him, El Salvador imprisons many women who have miscarriages under charges of murder. At least 140 women have been imprisoned for up to 30 years for miscarriages that the dictatorship has concluded were abortions.

One Salvadoran woman died in prison from lymphoma several years after a miscarriage.

For those who think it can’t happen here, the State of Louisiana is considering legislation similar to the law in El Salvador. Miscarriage could become a crime in Louisiana.

As New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd [Requires Subscription] put it, “it is outrageous that five unelected, unaccountable and relatively unknown political operatives masquerading as impartial jurists can so profoundly alter our lives.”

The five religious terrorists on the Supreme Court don’t care because they know the Trump cult is behind them all the way.