It is difficult to put into exact words the mix of anger, rage, weariness, fright, worry, and determination I feel after hearing of the Supreme Court’s rulings on abortion and guns this past week. That the highest court of our great country is now populated by a majority of people completely and entirely out of step with the majority of America is a problem many of us predicted when Donald Trump was running against Hillary Clinton in 2016, and these are the fruits of that disastrous election. The man who incited and executed an attempted coup of America, the man who refused to act like a true American and participate in the orderly transition of leadership, and the man who was more focused on illegally extending his role as President than helping us through the COVID pandemic, installed three of the justices who are now stripping Americans of their rights. All three of those justices lied under oath when they claimed Roe versus Wade was settled law and they saw no need to change it.
Most people who lie on their job application or during their job interviews don’t end up getting the job, or are subsequently fired from the job. That’s how it works, unless you’re on the Supreme Court, where honesty and integrity and basic human decency no longer matter.
Many of us understand that this is precisely what the Republican Party has been working toward for years. It’s why I was so adamant that every Presidential election was also a Supreme Court election. These awful decisions are also enshrined in the current Republican platform, and the only way to begin righting the wayward ship that America has become is to vote them out in this year’s elections, and all elections, until they start speaking for the people they represent.
I am lucky enough to never have been in a situation where abortion would have to be a choice for me, and if I were, I don’t know what that decision would be. But that should be a personal decision for anyone and everyone faced with that choice – because it is a choice. The right to choose doesn’t infringe on anyone else’s rights – taking away that choice absolutely does.
For those who don’t believe abortion should be allowed, you absolutely have the right to those beliefs, and you have the right to not have an abortion. If you’ve been raped as a teenage girl, you have the right to carry the baby to term. If you have an ectopic pregnancy that will ultimately end up killing you, you have the right to see it through whatever might result. What you don’t have the right to do is tell another woman she can’t make her own choices.
Our country must start to speak out against these decisions, and then we must vote against the party whose platform is officially against choice, against marriage equality, and against the very rights for which America was created.
