Judge Samuel Alito went out of his way to say that the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would not affect other decisions, like contraception and gay marriage. But in the same decision, he asserted that the Constitution contains no “right to privacy,” on which these cases were built.
The Miami Herald interviews Jim Obergefell, the lead plaintiff in the gay marriage, who expressed his fear that the Court meant to strike down all rights based on the right to privacy.
In his draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito tries to limit the blast radius of his ruling by writing that abortion is fundamentally different from other privacy matters — like contraception and marriage equality — that have historically challenged the court. “The abortion right,” Alito writes, is “critically different from any other right that this Court has held fall within the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of ‘liberty.’” Overturning one, he says, would not necessarily undermine the others. Jim Obergefell doesn’t believe him.
The plaintiff in the landmark 2015 case before the Supreme Court that established same-sex marriage as a constitutional right now says he is tired, disheartened and terrified of what may come after reading Alito’s sweeping rationale in the draft decision published Monday by Politico. “I’ve been asked if I believe what he says in that decision — that this is specific to a woman’s right to an abortion, and really should not be used on marriage equality,” Obergefell told McClatchy in an interview. “I don’t believe that whatsoever, because so many of the things he says in that decision open the door to using those arguments against marriage equality. And where does it stop?”
“I’m terrified. I really can’t put it any more simply than that. I am terrified,” he continued. “Marriage equality, while we had it for seven years, clearly will not pass his definition of tradition or history.”
Obergefell v. Hodges was a landmark civil rights case that culminated after years of litigation in a 5-4 decision at the high court, requiring all 50 states and U.S. territories to perform and recognize same-sex marriages the same as opposite-sex marriages.
Alito dissented from that decision, and in a speech to the Federalist Society in 2020 criticized it once again. “You can’t say marriage is a union between one man and one woman,” he told the conservative organization. “Until very recently, that’s what the vast majority of Americans thought. Now it’s considered bigotry.”
At that time, Alito found himself in the minority. But the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy — who wrote the Obergefell decision and several other key gay rights decisions that preceded it — provided then-President Donald Trump with an opening to nominate a conservative replacement.
Trump chose Brett Kavanaugh, who currently supports the decision to overturn Roe that Obergefell now fears.
“All I have to say is, they said in their confirmation hearings that they considered Roe v. Wade settled law,” Obergefell said. “Clearly they were misleading the Senate — not being truthful — so regardless of what they said during their confirmation hearings about marriage equality.”
“Losing Justice Kennedy was a loss to the LGBTQ+ community because he was so instrumental in decisions bringing us forward as a nation and toward a more perfect union,” he added. Gay rights organizations told McClatchy they have been preparing for a decision ending Roe v. Wade for months, but were nevertheless stunned by the sheer sweep of Alito’s written opinion.
Top officials and attorneys at the Human Rights Campaign held an emergency huddle on Monday night when the leaked draft published, and both HRC and GLAAD leaders are working to mobilize support for protests around the country with pro-choice groups. “The fact that Alito in this decision takes the track that, if these fundamental rights that we enjoy in our nation are not specifically enumerated in our constitution, then they’re questionable and should only be based on our nation’s history and traditions – to me that is one of the scariest things to hear a Supreme Court justice say,” Obergefell said.
“The history and tradition in North America, in the land now known as the United States of America, was for white people to own black people. There’s a longer tradition there than there is of freedom,” he added. “So it’s just a terrifying thing.”
Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/article261132807.html#storylink=cpy
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane: “Judge Samuel Alito went out of his way to say that the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would not affect other decisions, like contraception and gay marriage.”
Of course, we should all believe him; but more, that all other judges that follow him will think the same way. Need I ask?
“What does Alito take the American People for?”
But here is Pence on the matter (HuffPost 05-06):
“PENCE SAYS HE HOPES 5 JUSTICES IN LEAKED OPINION WILL HAVE ‘COURAGE’ TO OVERTURN ROE Former Vice President Mike Pence said he hopes the five justices named in a draft majority opinion have the “courage of their convictions” to overturn the case that created a constitutional right to abortion. Pence also suggested that he would not support a national law banning abortion, saying it should be up to the states to decide on ‘This profound moral issue.'”
Then there’s that OTHER “profound moral issue” from Midwestern Republicans:
“GOP CANDIDATE ACCUSED OF MURDERING HIS WIFE WINS PRIMARY ELECTION FROM JAIL A farmer from Boone County, Indiana, who is accused of murdering his wife won a Republican primary election this week, from jail. He secured a spot on the ballot in November’s general election for the Clinton Township Board, by winning 60 votes.”
Everything is So Very Rabbit Hole. CBK
FYI: My comment went to moderation. CBK
Mine, too. The upshot: read the decision closely and it becomes quite clear very quickly that it is a template, a boilerplate, for attacking ALL unenumerated rights.
Something the most extremist Repugnicans have wanted an Extreme Court to do for a long, long time.
The so-called originalists on the Supreme Court will turn back the hands of time to horse and buggy days unless people protest and make some “good trouble.” I doubt protest will have any impact on the court, but it might put Democrats on notice. Perhaps Biden should consider packing the court if he cannot get bills like voting rights through Congress. Most liberals see the Constitution as a living, breathing document that must evolve with society, not an antiquated document fixed in time. Democrats must be willing to push back against right wing minority rule. A recent poll showed a 61% support for keeping Roe V Wade.
retired teacher Shouldn’t someone ask: Where is the responsibility of men in this?
What would happen if men needed a Certificate of Vasectomy before even getting close to a woman they may become intimate with and don’t already, in unison, want to bear children with. There’s so much wrong with this entire picture. . . . CBK
Someone made the following point on line. If a woman has sex with 100 men during a year, it may result in one birth. If a man has sex with 100 women in a year , it could potentially result in 100 babies. Whose sexuality needs to be regulated?
Overturning Roe V Wade is a war on women. We live in a twisted society if a twelve year old victim of rape or incest may be forced to bear a child, but she cannot read about it in school. We have a right wing Taliban in our country and courts.
We keep tiptoeing around DOING SOMETHING BEFORE CONCEPTION, both men and women.
I want to hear more from both sides about SELF-REGULATION in the bedroom.
We will still have some unexpected pregnancies and (I argue) a need for LEGAL ACCESS to abortion; but we need to stop acting like both men and women, on principle, must leave our brains outside the bedroom door, . . . and we don’t. CBK
AND from retired teacher, this needs to be repeated:
“If a woman has sex with 100 men during a year, it may result in one birth. If a man has sex with 100 women in a year, it could potentially result in 100 babies. Whose sexuality needs to be regulated? Overturning Roe V Wade is a war on women. We live in a twisted society if a twelve year old victim of rape or incest may be forced to bear a child, but she cannot read about it in school. We have a right wing Taliban in our country and courts.” CBK
This Court May use the same rationale to outlaw contraception
Diane on contraception . . . yes, I know. CBK
Overturning Roe V Wade will not stop abortion, just safe abortions for mostly poor women that will resort to self harm or back alley terminations.
Hi Catherine,
An older woman I used to know gave this advice- if you don’t want to get pregnant, keep your knees together. How about that for self regulation?!?!
To M.K. Allegretti: Ha ha. Keeping our knees together is funny, but not as funny as you might think. Let me spell it out: It leaves the man’s responsibility out of the bedroom, and supports their “tip-toe around the issue” and tacit “Fxxx and Go” mentality. CBK
This is the first time that the Supreme Court has ever withdrawn a right.
An extremely important point, Diane!
The first but not the last. In fact, as Alito well knows, his decision is a template for withdrawing a whole body of unenumerated rights.
Horse & buggy? Not even! For support, Alito had to go as far back as the 17th century, for an opinion from witch-hanging judge Matthew Hale.
Is ANY decision safe?
Will they wait for cases (see below*) contest “inclusion” and “equity” and “equal rights” from the past 70 years?
Brown v. Board of Education
Pico
Plyler v. Doe
IDEA
Title IX
*Conservative white men (and women who hate the PTO moms) have declared themselves 21st Century VICTIMS of discrimination because the playing field or attempts to provide access and opportunity have been leveled by the Supreme Court.
They hate “woke” – – Well WE better get “WOKE” to what they are doing
In short, no–NO decision is safe now. If what you listed, as well as others, were relitigated, as the title of an Atlantic piece recently said, the entire 20th century will be, essentially, repealed. As I stated in a previous post, after 50-plus years of organizing with think tanks, PR firms, “educational” organizations & PACS–all as 501-3-c & -d status organizations to hide the money trail, the right wing has won, from Eugene B. Sydnor’s demand that Lewis F. Powell draft his now-biblical memo on saving the free enterprise system to Tucker Carlson along with OAN and Newsmax controlling the minds of over half the national electorate. Any- and everyone else can’t even marshal together a cup of coffee. Over the next few years, I guarantee, we will be seeing the dismantling of American democracy in the name of the very concepts it was founded.
I really wish I could be optimistic, I really wish I could be hopeful, Wait, WHAT? WHAT’S NEXT? I really wish I could be positive and offer rallying words of rah-rah-rah for the home team of Common Sense, Consideration For All, and Respect For Everyone. But I’m a Carlinist (subscriber to the political observations of the late comedian George Carlin) and in this age of mega-hyperconsumerism, mindless thumb-swipe technology and shallow social media, Carlin was more than prescient about Americans and what they were willing to sell out and settle for when he stated in 1996: “where are all the other bright people of conscience? Where are all the bright, honest, intelligent Americans ready to step in and save the nation and lead the way? We don’t have people like that in this country. Everybody’s at the mall scratching his [bleep], picking his nose, taking out his credit card out of a fannie-pack, and buying a pair of sneakers with lights in them,” and in keeping up with the times, he observed in 2008: “nobody questions things in this country anymore. Nobody questions anything. Everybody is too fat and happy. Everybody has got a cell phone that’ll make pancakes and rub their [bleeps] now. Way too prosperous for our own good, way too prosperous. Americans have been bought off in silence by toys and gizmos, and, as a result, no one learns to question things.” The momentum of what is coming as exposed by Trumpism and the events since (the Insurrection and this court decision part of it), it’s just too big to ignore. It really is time to consider mere survival in this country for those still willing to live in it or to pack up and leave altogether.
“Is ANY decision safe?”
Yes, the Citizens United decision is safe because the Constitution states clearly that corporations are people.
You beat me to it.
I’ve never liked the term unenumerated rights because the point is not whether they are numbered but whether they are expressed, so I avoided it in my comments on this decision. But that’s the standard legal term and what the decision is about. Extreme conservatives have always HATED the legal theory of there being unenumerated (not specifically stated) rights implicit in the general concepts of the Constitution because they believe that they should have the power to impose constraints on others’ private lives. No, you cannot, if you are a woman, control your own reproduction (contra Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey). No, you cannot marry across racial lines (contra Loving v. Viginia). No, you cannot use contraception (contra Griswald v. Connecticut). No, you cannot smoke marijuana. No, you cannot sell sexual services. No, you cannot sleep with someone of the same sex (contra Lawrence v. Texas). No, you cannot marry someone of the same sex (contra Obergefell v. Hodges). No, you cannot adopt a gender identity different from your biological sex. No, you cannot vote unless [long list of prohibitions here that make it more difficult for poor people to vote].
And that’s the larger point of the Alito decision. It is not just a decision about abortion rights. It is a template for decisions about this AND other unenumerated rights. Even as it overturns Supreme Court precedent on abortion, it serves as a precedent for overturning an entire body of law based on unenumerated rights, and if you actually read the decision (how many have?), you will find that it was carefully written to lay out IN GENERAL the theory for overturning that body of law and its associated rights. The decision is revolutionary and is meant to be.
Lest anyone think I am overexaggerating about the scope of this decision (beyond abortion), let me quote from it:
“Respondents and the Solicitor General also rely on post-Casey decisions like Lawrence v. Texas . . . (right to engage in private, consensual sexual acts) and Obergefell v. Hodges, . . . (right to marry a person of the same sex). . . . These attempts to justify abortion through appeals to a broader right to autonomy and to define one’s concept of existence prove too much. . . . Those criteria, at a high level of generality, could license fundamental rights to illicit drug use, prostitution, and the like. . . . None of these rights has any claim to being deeply rooted in history.” [Earlier in the opinion he argues that being deeply rooted in history is one of the acceptable arguments for an implied but not explicitly stated right.]
So, there you are. He lays here the groundwork to throw the legality of homosexuality and gay and lesbian marriage back to the states.
Our dear friend Greg Brozeit, who is fluent in German and a profound scholar of modern German history, has made the point that the now extremist Republican Party in America–the party led by the man who wanted police and the military to SHOOT BLM protestors and unarmed asylum seekers–intends to seize control in this country and impose fascism and that in order to do this, it will have to establish a legal framework that enables that. It will use the law to clothe fascism in traditional American garb. And you accomplish that end by getting the right judges in place and passing the right laws and getting the imprimatur of the courts on those laws–ones that eliminate in one fell swoop whole bodies of rights under the law and give the state the power to use its monopoly on violence to ensure that those rights are not exercised. So, in Germany, you couldn’t have the Nazi government without the Enabling Act and its imprimatur by German courts. We are Germany in 1932.
So, beyond simply women’s reproductive rights, as important, as essential as those are, there is this more general problem with the Alito decision. It is a plug-and-play boilerplate for eliminating the whole body of law related to unenumerated rights and thereby eliminating those rights. You might think of it as a kind of Bill of anti-Rights. It is a revolutionary document, akin to a revised, fascist Constitution for a new, Trumpier American government, a far more powerful coercive state.
cx: exaggerating, not overexaggerating
“Now it’s considered bigotry.”
Uh, because it is, “Justice” Alito.
Justice Alito is sorry that anyone would take offense at his anti-gay beliefs and he is sorry that anyone believes he is a bigot just because he is anti-gay. Alito hopes to do everything in his power to insure that in the future no one will be able to consider his anti-gay beliefs to be bigotry and he is very sorry that people feel that way about his anti-gay beliefs now.
LOL. Beautifully said, NYC PSP!
Alito grew up in Hamilton Township, NJ, so far as I can tell he went to public schools and he went to Steinert High School. His mother was a school teacher and his father taught in high school for part of his employment years. He and the other far righties on the court will be there for a long time, sigh. Very discouraging. Trump the grifter got to appoint 3 justices to the SCOTUS and Biden one, so far. I really curse the electoral college system which has inflicted some really horrible dopes upon this country.
The antiquated electoral college will ensure that rural areas get more representation than the denser populations that often vote Democrat. It is very discouraging.
Just as CRT is not about education, the Alito Roe draft is not about abortion. It is much bigger. Some of you come oh so close to crossing the rhetorical goal line. The real question is not if or why, but how this becomes a legal mallet that makes no decision “safe.”
If the wording “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start” remains intact in the final opinion, it basically creates a precedent that precedent no longer exists. It would effectively be the first mortal wound in the legal doctrine of stare decisis as a check on judicial power. Its goal is to make a mockery out of the idea of judicial review as to render it meaningless. It’s “reasoning” could seep into and dominate all law from civil to maritime to military. And it fits perfectly with ALEC’s strategy to marginalize judicial review with packaged, ready-to-go legislation for lazy, partisan, or stupid (or all of the above) statewide elected legislature or governor.
This was not a legal shot over the bow. It was a direct hit on democracy and left no doubt that the only thing this court wants more is a tailor-made case that will give them stronger legal “reasoning” to be even more draconian. That would be the only reason this language might not be in the final decision handed down. It would be a short-lived “victory” that would be a prelude to something even worse for average and poor Americans.
This is the typical drivel the DNC-driven agenda gives us, focusing on individual policies rather than the real existential threat to democracy the Republican Party poses from local government through the office of the presidency. Now as correct as we may be about the fate of women’s rights and as big as that issue is, this is about much, much basic stakes. The radical right and their few partners on the looney left understand this. Hardly anyone else, it seems, does. Or at the very least, they can’t identify the true threat this enemy is posing. If they do not win now or in the next elections, they will continue to poison and cripple the system until they do. That, it seems, is the best we can hope for now. A slow death with faint hope for a miracle recovery rather than an immediate plunge into fascism.
GregB writes: “And it fits perfectly with ALEC’s strategy to marginalize judicial review with packaged, ready-to-go legislation for lazy, partisan, or stupid (or all of the above) statewide elected legislature or governor.” CBK: One is all that is needed to disqualify, but ALL OF THE ABOVE.
In my view, the first thing to go should be the “corporations are people” thing.
But second, in a disingenuous environment, I’m for instigating Prizes for Leakers.
And third, from what apparently is in the draft, and as you say, (correct me if I am wrong) the issue of abortion is completely distinct from the more general attack on the rights as a group/themselves . . . the enabling of SCOTUS, like it is said of God, to give but also to take away, and without referring to either “the people” or to history (unless it serves their purpose, of course).
Abortion, then, is just one of those rights among all the others; and all the falderal about it, as right as it is, throws a covering shadow over the implications of Alito’s draft.
We need to walk and chew gum, then, both with the energy it takes to stay alive. CBK
Good to see you here again, GregB. I have a concurring opinion. Yes, even as this decision overturns the Roe and Casey precedents, it establishes another–that one looks to the literal language of the Constitution AND to historical decisions (going all the way back in the Common and statutory law) and on those bases eschews unenumerated rights.
The Republicans know that they have lost the young people, who oppose them on EVERY issue (polls show this, and I’ve written elsewhere on the topic). And even people as tuck as Trump and Carlsen understand that the ethnic and racial makeup of the country is changing dramatically and that this does not bode well for Republicans. (Trump got only 9 percent of the Black vote, for example.) So, they need to grab power, restrict voting rights, and make decisions that do away with whole bodies of rights if they are to hold onto power and enact their agendas.
But here’s the thing, our hope in the long run. Their attempt to do this will run afoul of a country that is way ahead of them. These people–the Alitos and Thomases and Trumps and their ilk–are backward troglodytes. The country is already way, way beyond them, in a galaxy far, far away from theirs of white power and white picket fences. So, there will be massive protests. And the nationalist fundamentalist fascist party (for that is what the Republican Party now clearly is) will respond with state violence, which will lead to more protests, which will lead to greater violence, in a vicious cycle, a negative feedback loop.
That this is going to happen seems to me almost certain. We’re going to have to win democracy all over again. We’re going to fight the fascists once again, not on the battlefields of Europe, but right here.
It’s the young people coming up who give me hope. Alito is a grotesque atavism, a throwback, and doesn’t know it. I can only imagine what someone as backward as he would see watching, say, the HBO series Euphoria or would hear listening to Lil Baby. But bet your life, the young are listening to Lil Baby. And to this guy:
But yeah, to your point, Greg. The Alito is the Fascist Declaration of state right to wipe away individual liberty. It’s a LOT BIGGER than just reproductive rights. It’s rights generally. This decision is the starting gun for the coming wave of state violence.
One could write precisely the same decision that Alito wrote to argue that while women have the right to vote under the 19th Amendment, they have no right to serve in politics and on the bench, that there is ample historical precedent for holding this to be the case, that their participation isn’t explicitly stated in the Constitution, and that other decisions and laws allowing these things were egregiously wrongly decided. Oh, and that wearing pants in public thing. That’s gotta stop.
Welcome to the Handmaid’s Tale.
Question: If the state forces a woman to give birth against her will and she dies, is that murder?? Who’s responsible for that?
Yes. It is.
But fascist states were never bothered much by carrying out murders. Their only issue with them has been the logistics.
FEAR is a powerful weapon that dictators and autocrats have used for centuries. Just ask Putin’s victims in Russia, if they are still alive.
It seems that the conservative majority on the US Supreme Court is planning to turn the US into an autocracy where FEAR will be necessary to control the population.
The only freedoms left that may not be overturned by the conservatives majority in the US Supreme Court are::
It’s the age old question, as well that causes every gop legislator to dance with no comment.
Mr. white male legislator… if your PhD track, engaged to another man daughter was raped (sorry) by some college frat boy, look in the camera and say that you’re good FORCING HER to continue the pregnancy in spite of what she might want ?
And, after the previous “administration” (if you can call it that) DeVos influence, you would concur that “Well, Boys will be Boys!” (Of course the supreme court knows a thing or two about that)
To the best of my knowledge, I still reside north of the Mason Dixon Line.
Michigan is no longer above that line, alas.
I don’t know how in this partisan hellscape we get there, but it is imperative that a constitutional amendment that guarantees the right to privacy specifically is drafted and passed. In this age of social media and AI, we are facing a form of autocratic governance that gives far too much power to the corporate few while simply dismissing the rest of us as inconsequential and not deserving to make decisions that impact our personal lives. Our privacy is under assault and this dismissal of Roe v. Wade represents the beginning of permission to lock us in a box that makes us the economic engine for billionaires.
Hello Paul: It’s not a matter of semantics; but conception is the start of a human life insofar as we need do nothing but allow the fetus (by whatever name) to grow; whereas, before conception, some act had to be committed (in whatever way) for conception to occur. That’s not a religious position on my part but rather a matter of human biology.
So that even without a religious position, for so many, “abortion” is another word for “murder.”
On the other side, because conception commonly occurs in a woman’s womb, and because fetuses (by whatever name) need to develop in utero and so in our bodies in order to reach a modicum of quasi-independent survival; and most importantly, because, if unwanted, pregnancy is, in fact, an enormous intrusion into our bodies and into every facet of our lives as human, probably for the rest of our lives . . . well, I hope you see what I mean.
To put it boldly, privacy is hardly the issue and, at best, just kicks the can down the road; and, probably, when privacy is brought to other rights as Alito’s Draft does, openly or tacitly, it just adds more confusion to the entire issue of rights, . . . any rights.
If abortion is indeed murder, however, and if unwanted pregnancy is indeed so horribly intrusive to so many of us (and it is), then we need to at least admit that we are asking for a medium place in the law that allows for, not privacy as such, but for excusing abortion, even if it is murder, at least in the early months of pregnancy. In my view, that’s what Roe vs Wade did, regardless of its narrative. (What woman doesn’t at least wonder? even in the context of having made a reasonable decision.) And MEN should be aware of this risk also, should they be so morally developed and inclined to take responsibility for their zippers.
I loved your note, however. And I want to reiterate that there are far too few mentions of either men’s FALSELY HIDDEN place in the pregnancy/abortion issue, or of the general correlate to freedom: responsibility in this and in all cultural/social/political AND religious issues discussed here.
But in my view, semantics aside, the murder vs pregnancy problem will NEVER be resolved on its own ground. The call for responsibility may seem trite to some . . . perhaps many . . . but the resort to bullying, to criminalizing women who choose abortion, and those who help them, etc., I wouldn’t want to write home about either.
Moreover, the problem with religious people screaming “murderer!” at women is that at least implicitly, they are calling for a theocratic state which, in our time, is coded/semantics for totalitarian state. If they want their own freedoms that they already enjoy by living in a secular state, then they have to stop screaming and spend their energy shoring up the cultural institutions that support the responsibilities that come with those freedoms.
In any case, in my view, the “down the road” issue of government banning pregnancy preventives (birth control) is beyond ridiculous. But then, I thought Trump would never make it to be president. CBK
I think if Alito’s screed is close to what we get in late June, then all bets will be off the table with everything from immigrant access to public schools, now being challenged by Governor Abbott in Texas, to same sex marriage. Yes, it is important that abortion be addressed directly and that right wing zealots are challenged again and again about their hypocrisy in their unwillingness to support children and their families after birth. However, there is a decades long radical strategic process that got us to the hubris of this Supreme Court and their success against Abortion rights will encourage the continuation of a long game that could decimate Constitutional protections.
Paul Exactly that. I suppose that’s why they called democracy an experiment or, The Great Experiment.
But that’s also why, even when the goals seem “trite” to many, keeping them active in our dialogue, even if some can see them only as long-term, is essential if we are to find our way, and not to only sink further into the mire of ignorance that (it seems to me) presently surrounds all of us.
It’s not an untenable idealism that I suggest, but an ongoing dialectic that is also suggested in the U.S. Constitution, even as we teeter on the advent of violence.
I can say that, while also suggesting that there might be a special place in hell for people that are “supreme” opportunists, like Mitch McConnell and Joe Manchin (call a spade a spade?), and those “supreme” morons on the “Supreme” Court. Perhaps they’ll soon be joined by most of the GOP. CBK
Hello Paul: It’s not a matter of semantics; but conception is the start of a human life insofar as we need do nothing but allow the fetus (by whatever name) to grow; whereas, before conception, some act had to be committed (in whatever way) for conception to occur. That’s not a religious position on my part but rather a matter of human biology.
So that even without a religious position, for so many, “abortion” is another word for “murder.”
On the other side, because conception commonly occurs in a woman’s womb, and because fetuses (by whatever name) need to develop in utero and so in our bodies in order to reach a modicum of quasi-independent survival; and most importantly, because, if unwanted, pregnancy is, in fact, an enormous intrusion into our bodies and into every facet of our lives as human, probably for the rest of our lives . . . well, I hope you see what I mean.
To put it boldly, privacy is hardly the issue and, at best, just kicks the can down the road; and, probably, when privacy is brought to other rights as Alito’s Draft does, openly or tacitly, it just adds more confusion to the entire issue of rights, . . . any rights.
If abortion is indeed murder, however, and if unwanted pregnancy is indeed so horribly intrusive to so many of us (and it is), then we need to at least admit that we are asking for a medium place in the law that allows for, not privacy as such, but for excusing abortion, even if it is murder, at least in the early months of pregnancy. In my view, that’s what Roe vs Wade did, regardless of its narrative. (What woman doesn’t at least wonder? even in the context of having made a reasonable decision.) And MEN should be aware of this risk also, should they be so morally developed and inclined to take responsibility for their zippers.
I loved your note, however. And I want to reiterate that there are far too few mentions of either men’s FALSELY HIDDEN place in the pregnancy/abortion issue, or of the general correlate to freedom: responsibility in this and in all cultural/social/political AND religious issues discussed here.
But in my view, semantics aside, the murder vs pregnancy problem will NEVER be resolved on its own ground. The call for responsibility may seem trite to some . . . perhaps many . . . but the resort to bullying, to criminalizing women who choose abortion, and those who help them, etc., I wouldn’t want to write home about either.
Moreover, the problem with religious people screaming “murderer!” at women is that at least implicitly, they are calling for a theocratic state which, in our time, is coded/semantics for totalitarian state. If they want their own freedoms that they already enjoy by living in a secular state, then they have to stop screaming and spend their energy shoring up the cultural institutions that support the responsibilities that come with those freedoms.
In any case, in my view, the “down the road” issue of government banning pregnancy preventives (birth control) is beyond ridiculous. But then, I thought Trump would never make it to be president. CBK
What’s going on with the site, I wrote a relatively long note, and it didn’t even show as being put in moderation? I’m writing this one to see if IT shows up? CBK
REPOST
Hello Paul: It’s not a matter of semantics; but conception is the start of a human life insofar as we need do nothing but allow the fetus (by whatever name) to grow; whereas, before conception, some act had to be committed (in whatever way) for conception to occur. That’s not a religious position on my part but rather a matter of human biology.
So that even without a religious position, for so many, “abortion” is another word for “murder.”
On the other side, because conception commonly occurs in a woman’s womb, and because fetuses (by whatever name) need to develop in utero and so in our bodies in order to reach a modicum of quasi-independent survival; and most importantly, because, if unwanted, pregnancy is, in fact, an enormous intrusion into our bodies and into every facet of our lives as human, probably for the rest of our lives . . . well, I hope you see what I mean.
To put it boldly, privacy is hardly the issue and, at best, just kicks the can down the road; and, probably, when privacy is brought to other rights as Alito’s Draft does, openly or tacitly, it just adds more confusion to the entire issue of rights, . . . any rights.
If abortion is indeed murder, however, and if unwanted pregnancy is indeed so horribly intrusive to so many of us (and it is), then we need to at least admit that we are asking for a medium place in the law that allows for, not privacy as such, but for excusing abortion, even if it is murder, at least in the early months of pregnancy. In my view, that’s what Roe vs Wade did, regardless of its narrative. (What woman doesn’t at least wonder? even in the context of having made a reasonable decision.) And MEN should be aware of this risk also, should they be so morally developed and inclined to take responsibility for their zippers.
I loved your note, however. And I want to reiterate that there are far too few mentions of either men’s FALSELY HIDDEN place in the pregnancy/abortion issue, or of the general correlate to freedom: responsibility in this and in all cultural/social/political AND religious issues discussed here.
But in my view, semantics aside, the murder vs pregnancy problem will NEVER be resolved on its own ground. The call for responsibility may seem trite to some . . . perhaps many . . . but the resort to bullying, to criminalizing women who choose abortion, and those who help them, etc., I wouldn’t want to write home about either.
Moreover, the problem with religious people screaming “murderer!” at women is that at least implicitly, they are calling for a theocratic state which, in our time, is coded/semantics for totalitarian state. If they want their own freedoms that they already enjoy by living in a secular state, then they have to stop screaming and spend their energy shoring up the cultural institutions that support the responsibilities that come with those freedoms.
In any case, in my view, the “down the road” issue of government banning pregnancy preventives (birth control) is beyond ridiculous. But then, I thought Trump would never make it to be president. CBK
Few people have noticed that the Roe v. Wade ruling allowing abortions is based on the so-called “Right to Privacy”. But just as there is no “right to abortion” mentioned in the Constitution, neither is any “right to privacy” mentioned anywhere in the Constitution. Overturning Roe v. Wade also overturns your so-called “right to privacy” — and your right to privacy is something you don’t want to lose because it opens the floodgates to government sticking its nose into everything you do — every secret you have will be fair game for government spying and eavesdropping.
In addition to losing your right to privacy, many other rights that aren’t mentioned in the Constitution are also going to be fair game for state and federal governments to eliminate. Already, laws are being drafted to limit your right to travel (see below). Imagine a future in which you are stopped by roadblocks at the state line and you have to produce documents to show just why you want to cross the state line or even travel within your own state. If Roe v. Wade falls, lots of rights you have been given by Supreme Court rulings but that aren’t mentioned in the Constitution are going to fall like dominoes because this activist conservative Court majority has demonstrated that for them there is no such thing as “settled law” and precedent. Beware.
quikwrit writes: “. . . it opens the floodgates to government sticking its nose into everything you do — every secret you have will be fair game for government spying and eavesdropping.”
So . . . we are battling interference from both government AND Wall Streeters, namely, Big Business.
The irony is that we need GOOD government to ward off big business, and we need big business to grow a conscience. If not, we all lose. CBK
From the New York Review of Books, a series of articles on abortion. This one is especially important for our legislators and the Court to read:
A Lesson from Ireland
A Few Paragraphs and the link:
“In a couple of weeks’ time, on May 25, Ireland will mark the fourth anniversary of the abortion referendum, when, with broad cross-party support, 66.4 percent of the population voted to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution.
“Adopted following a deeply divisive referendum in 1983, “the Eighth” asserted the right to life of the unborn, “with due regard to the equal rights of the mother.” Abortion had been illegal in Ireland since the passage of the British Offences Against the Person Act 1861, which was kept on the statute books after independence. But for religious conservatives it was not illegal enough.
“In the early 1980s an alliance of conservative and right-wing religious groups rode the wave of Catholic fervor that washed over Ireland following Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1979. In effect, they orchestrated a preemptive strike against social liberalization. Alarm bells rang in 1980, when contraception was legalized on medical prescription and for “bona fide family planning purposes” only. What worried religious conservatives was that the legal argument for the right to contraception was based on the right to privacy—precisely the argument that led the way to the legalization of abortion in the United States after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade.
“The baleful consequences of the Eighth for Irish women and children quickly became apparent, and over the years further amendments guaranteeing the right to travel for an abortion and the right to information were added to the constitution, in order to try to soften the restrictive legislation. In 1992 the fourteen-year-old Ms X had been raped by a neighbor and was prevented by an injunction from traveling to England to terminate the pregnancy. The legal arguments centered on whether the suicidal child X’s right to life weighed in the balance against that of the fetus. The X case was not the first time the Eighth Amendment had come under scrutiny. In January 1984 a fifteen-year-old girl, Ann Lovett, had died along with her baby after she gave birth outside, and alone, in County Longford. But the 1992 case brought home to many people that the Eighth Amendment did not simply protect fetuses. It gave them more rights than the mothers who carried them. This was proved again in 2012, . . . ”
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2022/05/06/a-lesson-from-ireland/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NYR%2005-09-22%20Abortion%20Symposium%201&utm_content=NYR%2005-09-22%20Abortion%20Symposium%201+CID_a9ceba5382428a2391c4a6f10510a515&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_term=Clair%20WillsA%20Lesson%20from%20Ireland
Thank you. Excellent excerpt.
Diane . . . here is more of that article from the New York Book Review about abortion in Ireland. I subscribe, but I hope I haven’t violated any laws in copying so much of it. With that possibility in mind, I heartily recommend subscribing. CBK
Continuing the article: “This was proved again in 2012, in the case of Savita Halappanavar, who died in an Irish state-affiliated hospital waiting for the heartbeat of her miscarried fetus to cease before she could be treated for sepsis.
“Thirty-five years on from the adoption of the Eighth, it was clear to two-thirds of the population and the vast majority of Irish legislators that it had to go. Arguments for repeal focused not only on the tragedy for women caught on the wrong side of the fetus/mother right-to-life divide but also on the thousands who bought abortion pills online and took them unsupervised. (The rise in online sales are thought to account for the fall in the numbers of women traveling to the UK for terminations. In providing across-the-border abortion services, Mexico is preparing to be to the US what the UK was to Ireland.)
“Ironically, given the X case, the No campaign (those against repealing the Eighth) tried to position itself as the defender of the rights of children—who were no longer described as the unborn, but the “preborn.” This argument didn’t wash with most people, and part of the reason for that, I’m sure, were the ongoing revelations of abuses in Ireland’s religious-run Mother and Baby Homes, the dead babies buried in septic tanks, and the scandal of forced adoptions, that had been in the news since the Irish Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes began its work in 2015.
xxx
“In Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, there’s a blithe comment suggesting that abortion is no longer really necessary given safe-haven laws, which allow people to relinquish babies without legal repercussions. After all, “a woman who puts her newborn up for adoption today has little reason to fear that the baby will not find a suitable home.” Alito’s comments echo Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s recommendation that instead of a late abortion mothers could be required by the state “to go 15, 16 weeks more and then terminate parental rights at the conclusion” of the pregnancy, after the birth of the child.
“Someone should send them a copy of the Irish Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes Final Report (2020). Or put them in touch with the advocacy group Adoption Rights Alliance, which campaigns for the statutory legal right of adopted people to their birth certificates and information about their early life. Or send them a link to the witness statements gathered and posted online by the Clann Project, founded “to help establish the truth of what happened to unmarried mothers and their children in 20th century Ireland.” Or get them to read Ann Fessler’s research on the costs for both women and children of the US system of coercive adoption in the years before Roe v. Wade. It’s really not difficult to find evidence of the life-long trauma, on both sides, when mothers—many of whom are also children—are forced to give birth to children they must then relinquish. It’s not difficult if you look.
“The Irish case is significant not only because of the large numbers of women who went through the system, in a country that offered them few alternatives other than (after 1967) traveling to England for an abortion, but also because of how long the system lasted, and therefore how many mothers and children are still around to talk about their trauma. There are myriad aspects to this trauma, but let’s consider just one: the complete break between birth mother and child that the Irish system maintains to this day, and that safe haven laws replicate.
“It seems likely that most adoptions that took place from Irish mother and baby homes were technically valid—though not all of them, and there is plenty of evidence of babies who were illegally registered as the natural-born children of their adoptive parents, or who were trafficked from Ireland to the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, when the supply of white babies for adoption there was falling. But the fact that desperate women signed adoption consent forms, in the absence of any other options, tells us little except that the law, and society, were not on the side of lone mothers. A constrained choice is not a free choice. And many of these mothers did not understand that they would never see their child again. It was a closed adoption system, and it is still incredibly difficult for both mothers and children to trace their birth relatives.
“Mothers gave evidence to the Irish Commission of the ‘unspeakable damage,’ over a lifetime, of giving birth and losing a child to adoption. Adoptees spoke of their “lifelong feelings of isolation and abandonment.” Safe-haven laws mimic this system, and one advantage that they offer is the opportunity for adoptive parents not to have to negotiate with biological parents. It’s like surrogacy, but without even having to deal with the pregnant host. As Justice Alito notes, there’s a problem in the US with baby supply, which for a long time has fallen way below adoptive-family demand. Banning abortion would even up the numbers.
“We know this world from fiction. I first read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale shortly after it was published in 1985, and I trusted the blurb that described it as a “futuristic dystopian novel.” I was twenty-two years old and, in Britain if not in Ireland, arguments for feminism and equal rights still seemed to have purchase. I found it hard to credit the parts of the novel that sketched the activism of Offred’s mother, a second-wave feminist, as long-gone history, barely remembered in the new world of Gilead. It turns out the novel was realism all along.
“In Ireland mothers who were coerced into signing away their children, and adoptees who were denied access to their birth parents while they were growing up, are filing legal cases against the Irish state, arguing that their human rights were violated. It seems likely that they will win in the European Court. But they have already won in the court of Irish public opinion. In 1983 Irish conservatives thought they could learn from the United States and preemptively introduce legislation that would render abortion doubly illegal. It is not too late for US conservatives to learn from Ireland’s mistakes, as the Irish public has learned the hard way.” AUTHOR: Claire Wills/05-06-22
“This essay is part of a series in which writers respond to the leaked Supreme Court draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.”