Hello my Zebras and Spoonies! Thanks for coming and hanging out with me today, I’m glad that you are here. Today is a dark day and I cannot express the tumult of emotions that I am feeling having heard the news that Roe vs Wade has been over turned. Today America has forgotten that it is a country that promises freedom.
The overturning of Roe vs Wade represents a loss of human rights, something that America has always claimed that is at it’s foundation. But we know the truth. That truth is that the majority of Americans have spent all of American history fighting for equity and fighting for their basic human rights. And now, we are seeing the rights that we have getting stripped away.
The 78 page opinion that the court has published to justify their crime against humanity declares within it that there is no inherent right to privacy or personal autonomy in various provisions of the Constitution. Consider this for a moment. Because this is a much larger issue then abortion. While stripping women of their right for medical autonomy is sin enough, this goes even further. It declares that no one has any right to privacy or autonomy that is protected by the Constitution within American. No one has the right to privacy or autonomy in this country. That is what the court has decided today.
There is a line within the 78 page document that states that their opinion only applies to abortion laws, but they have made things murky at best. Considering that they blatantly declared that the people have no right to privacy nor the right to autonomy, how can they also declare that this opinion would not be considered to impact other legal rights? That’s a thin veneer at best. There is already discussion about reviewing the other cases that are founded upon Roe vs Wade. And there are many. Because when they write that the other rights are not being revoked, they mean that those rights are not being revoked at this point with this decision. It means that those rights will have to be decided upon in the future. But, the foundation upon which those rights stood has now been revoked. So where does that leave us when we are looking towards the future?
Chaos is coming. As all of the laws against abortion now come back into effect, the legal system is going to have to figure out how those laws actually apply. Some states have multiple and conflicting abortion laws in place. Not to mention that there is now going to be a state to state conflict. Anti abortion states are making efforts to prevent women from being able to legally get care in other states. This will only lead to the states being at legal war with each other as they fight out who has the right to decide. Sure, the Supreme Court has decided that the states can decide how to regulate abortion, but which state should be given the last say when they are holding conflicting laws? Does one state have the right to implement laws that reach across the boarders to other states? None of that has been decided and it is going to be a legal slug fest while women’s lives hang in the balance.
America is not a democracy any longer, if it ever was. A democracy is “a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.” When elected representatives are allowed to make decisions that are clearly against the majority, it can no longer be said that they are working for or representing that majority. Polls of the American people indicated that 64% of Americans were against the overturn. That’s a clear majority. The whole population is supposed to have a vote in important issues. Yet, this decision to revoke fundamental human rights did not consider the opinion of the people. This type of action is what you would expect in a fascist government. Where a single person or a small group makes the decisions for the people and opposition to those decisions is not allowed or considered.
All our rights are now at risk. With Roe vs Wade over turned, the foundation that protects our right to privacy and our right to autonomy is gone. The right to privacy has been used to build the legal support for our right to contraceptives, adult rights to sexual intimacy, to gay or interracial marriage, and to the rights of parents to make family decisions, such as whether their children are home-schooled or go to religious schools. The right to privacy also supports an adult’s right to decide their medical care, and an adult’s right to die, by rejecting medical care in certain circumstances. This medical care area also implicates the rights and autonomy of the physically disabled and the mentally ill. Further, the right to privacy can support artificial insemination. And transgender individuals have used privacy to argue that schools cannot ban them from certain bathrooms, and that government must generally support their gender identity choices. The undermining of this single right, the right to privacy, is the undermining of a great deal more then abortion.
I am honestly afraid for what the future will bring for this country. I do not feel safe living here. Forced pregnancy is considered an international crime because it is believed to be against human rights. Yet, America has disregarded that.
All that being said, this can be undone. We can vote in people that value human rights. We as the people do have some control in this. When we vote, we need to be sure that we are voting for people that believe that human rights are essential and should be protected by our government. At both the state and federal level, we need to be voting for people that are interested in protecting the people. All the people.
Well, that’s about it for my ranting today. I think any more on this topic will cause me to implode. Thanks for coming and spending some time with me. If you like what you read, click on that like button. It really does help! Until we talk again, you take care of yourselves!
Zebra Pig 