Hardly had the word that Roe v. Wade is dead leaked like sewage out of the outhouse when Republicans and Democrats, pro and con Abortionists, started yelling at each other.
Democrats attacked the ruling for its obvious assault on women’s rights to control their own bodies. Republicans attacked the ruling for… Oops!…they didn’t attack the ruling. They attacked the leakers.
“This lawless action should be investigated and punished,” said Senator Mitch McConnell, who has spent the last twenty years stacking the Supreme Court with judges – mostly Catholic, mostly white males – who, despite what they told the Senate and the American public, were against abortion.
Reminds me of the line from Casablanca, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”
Of course, leaks of this sort are not illegal, as Mitch well knows. Leaking national security secrets is illegal; leaking drafts of Supreme Court rulings is not.
Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski were also shocked, shocked! After all, they had asked the Supreme Court aspirants about their position on 1973’s Roe v Wade during public hearings and were assured that…um, it was established law, that they…um…weren’t sure of the circumstances…would study the law…but couldn’t, in good conscience say how they’d… um…vote. So, feeling well informed, Collins and Murkowski and the other Republicans, voted them onto the Court.
Reminds me of another Casablanca line, “Round up the usual suspects.”
How about Mitch McConnell and Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski as a start?
As a country we are (supposedly) committed to separating church and state. Of course for the Christian Right and the Catholic Church, that’s always been a hollow commitment.
The issue of abortion has never been easy. Who takes precedence, the unborn or the mother? Are there any good reasons to abort a fetus? When does life begin? Science says one thing, religion another. Of course religions made their decisions over 2000 years ago, well before medical science even started. Science is still discovering its truths while religions know all truths and always have since they first discovered the earth was square.
And, hey, women were never that important anyway, right? Pop out those babies, baby! We macho types will do the rest!
But, of course, those macho types were usually busy with other things, so women have always carried the burden of children far more than men. They’re the ones who get pregnant, not the men. And if there is no guy around to help, they raise the kid, even if that means in abject poverty. Men don’t even have to apologize. They can either stay and be fathers, or take off for the next round of baby-making.
And wouldn’t it be cool if scientists could invent a pill that prevented pregnancy in women, or disabled all those little swimmers in men? Oh, right! They have!
I suppose that’s next on the Supreme Court agenda.
Whatever happens, a bunch of men, mostly white, mostly religious, mostly liars wearing the robes of gravitas, just decided that women have to have babies, whether they want to or not.
Or visit back alleys where they can have needles poked up their uteruses in hopes of killing the baby and not the woman.
The Supreme Court sure smells like an outhouse today.