In the draft decision that, if approved, would overturn the landmark abortion rights ruling Roe v. Wade, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito wrote this:
“We emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”
Do you trust Alito? I do: about as far as I can throw him.
While Alito appears to be trying to turn down the heat about a possible continuation of the court’s overreach into people’s lives, some legal experts say the controversial ruling, as written, sets the stage for attacks on our rights in the areas of contraception and same-sex and interracial marriage.
After having watched this far-Right majority of the court in action, do you think they’re just going to stop with abortion rights? Neither do I.
Law professors Melissa Murray of New York University School of Law and Leah Litman of the University of Michigan Law School recently wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post titled, “Alito’s aggressive ruling would reach way beyond Roe.”
They wrote that Alito’s opinion implicitly invited “a flurry of challenges to other precedents, including cases protecting contraception and LGBTQ civil rights,” and the opinion’s “indignant tone and aggressive reasoning make clear how empowered this conservative majority believes itself to be.”
They noted that “many of the criticisms that the court levies at Roe … apply with equal force to other precedents.”
Among their points were:
*The draft opinion said that the Constitution “makes no reference to abortion,” and argues that abortion rights were “entirely unknown in American law” throughout most of the nation’s history. The same is true of contraception, interracial and same-sex marriage, and sexual intimacy between consenting adults.
*The draft opinion said that “far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue,” Roe has “enflamed debate and deepened division.” The fact is the majority of Americans support abortion rights, but that may not stop the court from making the same false arguments about the other issues.
You can read the opinion piece here.
A CNN report titled, “It’s impossible to wall off reversing Roe from landmark marriage and contraception rulings,” said that overturning Roe “will also destabilize the law by rendering the legal doctrine of stare decisis – the notion that courts should follow their precedents even if they disagree with them, to protect the cohesion of the law – a dead letter.”
Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, summed it up this way:
“Roe wasn’t decided in a vacuum; it’s part of a larger understanding of the Constitution that recognizes a right to privacy in a text that doesn’t expressly identify it. If there’s a majority of justices no longer willing to recognize such a right in the context of abortion – indeed who believe the court should never have recognized it – then that calls into question those rights, as well.”
You can read the CNN story here.
Look, the Supreme Court can be considered corrupt for at least three reasons. One is the system for approving justices was corrupted by the Republicans, in the Senate, giving the conservatives a 6-3 majority when, if procedure had been followed, the Democrats would have a 5-4 advantage.
Also, because multiple justices lied about their view of settled law in their confirmation hearings, and three of them were placed by an historically corrupt president who was elected with a minority of the votes with the help of Russia. And all that doesn’t include the shenanigans of Justice Clarence Thomas and his traitor wife Ginni.
Stacking the justice system all the way up to the Supreme Court with compliant judges has been a Republican goal for a long time. This is what they’re looking for: a minority party dictating against the wishes of the majority of the country.
This has brought us to a Supreme Court that Murray and Litman described like this:
“The caustic tone and aggressive reasoning suggest this conservative majority feels unconstrained. It does not fear political pushback for its angry tirade against abortion. It does not feel any sense of obligation or concern for the women who will suffer as a result of the opinion. And it has no sense of institutional propriety that might lead it to act with more humility and caution.”
Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor rightly pointed to politics when she noted that the sponsors of the Mississippi law that’s being used to challenge Roe said they were doing it “because we have new justices on the Supreme Court.”
“Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?” Sotomayor asked.
The answer is maybe, maybe not, but one thing is certain:
That stench is going to be around for a while.
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Thank you for reading my post. You can see my other writings on my blog: “Musings of a Nobody.”