First, I’d better explain my title as I know I probably chose the wrong one. When I was seven our family started taking summer vacation in Balboa. When my father drove, my mother sang with us children to pass the time: “Oars, row your boat gently down the drain, happy, happy, happy for life is just a dream.” (In retrospect it was better than “99 bottles of beer “That my sister and I eventually adopted or discovered from state license plates.)
Forgive this huge transition, but after listening to the recent oral arguments of the Supreme Court on the Mississippi abortion case, forensic scientists predict that Roe v. Calf is tilted. Even though it has been the law of the country for almost fifty years.
Two things come to mind. First, why do we only hear the judges and not see them during oral hearings? Are you camera shy? Second, while there has been great progress, women have consistently come off the beaten track constitutionally.
For example, the Declaration of Independence proclaims “all men are equal” but says nothing about women. And slaves were counted as 3/5 of a person. It took women 132 years to get the right to vote. Which reminds me of Victoria Woodhull, a prominent publisher and suffragette who became the first woman to run for president in 1872 despite being unable to vote.
Her running mate was former slave Frederick Douglass. Speaking of Freddy, who can forget that on the first day of Black History Month on February 1, 2017, Donald Trump clearly thought Douglass was still alive. “Frederick Douglass is an example of someone who has done a great job and I can see he’s getting more and more recognition.” (Woodhull’s choice of Douglass actually caused a firestorm because many women were understandably jealous that the slaves had the right to vote but they didn’t.)
I know many readers and the management of the Daily Press are tired of writing about Trump, but Roe wouldn’t be this close to being trending without him. On the campaign trail in March 2016, Trump said that if abortions were banned, women would have to be “punished”. It can be even worse.
Last May, Texas Governor Abbott signed a measure that would ban abortions after just six weeks – before some women know they are pregnant. Additionally, it could essentially represent individuals as bounty hunters pursuing women who attempt to have abortions in states where it was legal and earn $ 10,000.
Texas law sounds like something out of a bad western and begs the question, how did we go from “life is just a dream” to a nightmare that at least 60% of right-to-vote countries have to vote? (It’s ironic that anti-vaxers claim “my body, my choice,” but many are against a woman’s reproductive rights.
Roe v. Wade was most at risk when Judge Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, essentially giving Obama 11 months to fill his vacancy. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell invoked an unofficial rule that no justice would be voted on during an election year to be left to the electorate.
Meanwhile, Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on September 18, 2020, just six weeks before the election in November. McConnell gave new meaning to hypocrisy and completely forgot about his “no appointments in an election year” blocking Obama. Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as Ginsburg’s successor and likely a death knell for Roe. (But, on the plus side, a potential gold mine for abortion bounty hunters.)
The thought of Donald Trump being “pro-life” is hilarious. He has openly bragged about cheating on all three of his wives. To think that, to be kind, one of his lovers would become pregnant, would like to greet the baby, and pay child support is more than ridiculous. In fact, one can only imagine how many abortions Trump paid for in his life.
Maybe I’m too pessimistic, but if Roe is overturned, women’s reproductive rights such as education, health care, life expectancy and housing will be a case of the haves and the dispossessed. Though it could cost more, the rich will always have access to abortions from top doctors, while unfortunately the working class could go back to the back alleys.
If history is a judge, we probably won’t hear the court’s verdict until June, right before they take their summer break. In this way, if the decision is very unpopular, the lawyers have skipped the city with 60% for Roe.
I still have fond memories of Balboa vacations and singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”. Hoping I’m wrong, I doubt I’ve been able to say the same thing in the past five years and what madness may lie ahead.
Jack is at: facebook.com/jackneworth, twitter.com/jackneworth and [email protected]
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