Here we go:
Candidly, I fucking (broke my curse rule) hate everything, I mean EVERYTHING surrounding the abortion debate. It kept me up a bit last night reflecting on things.
To my friends on the left. Please, please please…. STOP castigating individuals who support the legal right for a woman to choose an abortion, but at the same time, have personal moral objections to the procedure. You want to win people over to your argument? Avoid statements like the following, it doesn’t help….
Now, that said, assuming we’re getting a 5-4 reversal of Roe (still a big assumption), as I said last night… “be careful what you wish for.” The prospect of young women in Florida needing to travel to say, Illinois, to legally have such a procedure, it’s impractical, and will inevitably lead to dangerous decision making by the mother. I’m generally terrible at compartmentalizing, but everyone, we need to separate out the religion and look at the reality, the consequences of what this potential ruling will bring. It’s not pretty, and will only solidify further our potential path to national divorce.
Call me skeptical as to whether this apparent decision will lead to a resurgent Dem wave of votes in November. Trump and McConnell, via naked, brutally efficient power politics, managed to get 3 conservative justices on the court over 45’s one term. Anyone voter with half a brain knew where this was headed at the time, and I’d argue this potential result with Dobbs has already been mostly baked in the cake, and not a same-sex cake at that (please chuckle). Maybe I’m wrong, we’ll see.
I am NOT a legal scholar by any means. I was more likely to get a Met Gala invite last night, than sniff law review in the late 1990s. Despite all the well-founded arguments against the right to privacy in Roe, critics conveniently forget that 1) It was a 7-2 decision, 2) It’s been established precedent now for nearly half a century, and 3) the PP v. Casey case effectively upheld it 30 years ago.
Point it, despite the consternations of many brilliant legal minds, it’s hard to argue in 2022 that Roe is anything but rock-solid precedent. Is there another example of such a 180 degree reversal by the Court, after so long a time period? Maybe Plessy v Ferguson to Brown v Board? Any others?
Keep it mind also, if you don’t like the idea of activist SCOTUS judges making law… don’t blame Justice Blackmun or Justice Alito…. blame John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison!
I’m done for now, will maybe write more later. In the meantime, my friend Sharon urges kindness…. she is right! Have a good day and BE KIND!
I appreciate your thoughts on this. I have many but it is worth starting with the obvious point of agreement between us: duh, are people really surprised? The time to be upset over this decision was actually way back in 2016 and, to be fair, many were. But I think it didn't dawn on everyone then, though it should have, what the eventual end game was - abortion illegal in the entire US and territories. I have my own thoughts on how far people really want to go in changing the US (pretty far) that I would be ok discussing someday but not now. Suffice it to say that I think this is going to a wedge issue for a long time still.
But really what I am curious about that you may have some insight on is what the leaker was trying to accomplish - is it that they thought releasing this would convince someone to switch sides? If so, to which side? Or to prevent someone from switching sides? Who is meant to be influenced and to what ends?