“Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation.” So wrote a politician once revered by Republicans, Ronald Reagan. But the U.S. no longer is home to Reagan’s GOP.
The party’s present iteration is a radical minority group, leveraging antidemocratic mechanisms in our government to restrict Americans’ freedoms, even when the majority of the nation is opposed. This has been made startlingly clear by the leaked draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case; it is a challenge to a law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Mississippi case was brought to the Court specifically to assail the protections afforded to women since the Roe v. Wade decision. The draft opinion reveals that the Supreme Court is poised to ignore legal precedent, and the clear will of most Americans, and remove a constitutionally protected freedom that American women have had guaranteed for half a century.
For the first time in U.S. history, the Supreme Court’s majority is comprised of Justices who were appointed by a President who had lost the popular vote, and who were confirmed by Senators who represented a minority of the country. In 2016, the Republican Senate refused for 293 days to give President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee a hearing. Then, in 2020, before the election, Republicans rushed through Trump’s appointee, even as early voting for the presidential election had already started.
Consequently, the U.S. Supreme Court is now a partisan institution that can blithely ignore the majority of the country, while it codifies into law radical legislation the deprives Americans of basic freedoms. The reversal of those freedoms, afforded by Roe, are the expression of a President and a Senate, elected by a minority of the country, rigging the system to produce a Court that’s staking out positions that defy the will of the majority. If one is looking for more evidence that our freedoms and our democracy are in peril, that’s about as bold an example.
Overturning Roe will strip from every American woman one of the most important rights she enjoys — controlling how and when she has a child. It is a right that 1 in 4 American women has exercised by obtaining an abortion, and that virtually all women have relied on to plan their lives, families and careers. The Dobbs decision will be the dissolution of the precedent that has saved countless lives and allowed generations of women to pursue lives, careers, and parenthood on their own terms.
As U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar told the Supreme Court when it heard oral arguments in Dobbs, reversing Roe “would be telling the women of America that … the ability to control their bodies and perhaps the most important decision they can make about whether to bring a child into this world is not part of their protected liberty.”
Multiple public opinion polls, taken over many years, prove that a majority of Americans (more than 60%) believe abortion should be legal in the first trimester of pregnancy. According to the CDC, 96% of abortions are performed before the 16th week of gestation. And abortion is far less dangerous to women that childbirth; the rate of death in live birth is 14 times higher (8.8 deaths per 100,000 live births vs. 0.6 deaths per 100,000 abortions). Clearly and evidently, the majority of Americans want to protect a woman’s freedom to choose when and how she becomes a mother.
But the radical, right-wing Republican Party today doesn’t care about your freedoms. Your freedoms are disposable, based on their own minority agenda. The same people who were screaming in the streets about requirements to wear a mask or get a shot, are now gleefully crowing over their impending success in removing American women’s freedom to do with their own body as they wish.
Because they understand most Americans oppose them, Republicans don’t want to talk about their assault on individual freedom. A recent GOP memo to lawmakers said they should use the talking point that the party believes “we should care for and support pregnant women in difficult circumstances.” That’s a lie. Because the majority of new abortion restrictions being passed in Republican-controlled states include no exception for rape, incest or human trafficking.
Republicans must be forced to confront the reality of their radical agenda. So the next time a Republican talks about abortion, don’t ask him, “You would take away reproductive rights?” Instead, frame the question honestly: “You would force a 12-year-old rape victim to bear a child for her rapist?” And when GOPer’s talk about ‘care and support’ for pregnant women, ask them, “How much time do you think women should serve in jail for having abortions?”
As Americans, each of us bears the torch of individual freedom, passed to us from our forebears. It is our duty to, in turn, pass that freedom to our children. The Republican Party of 2022, despite Reagan’s admonition, have declared that they are the generation that is choosing to extinguish freedom for half the U.S. population. It is our patriotic duty to see that they don’t succeed.
The La Mesa Foothills Democratic Club meets the first Wednesday of every month. Join us for our in-person Club meeting on Wednesday, June 1, 7 p. m., at the La Mesa Community Center, 4975 Memorial Drive. For more information, visit: lamesafoothillsdemocraticclub.com
– Sean Quintal writes on behalf of the La Mesa Foothills Democratic Club.
