I can’t breathe. I turned 20 the year Roe v Wade happened. In high school (so before that), my four best friends sought abortions. Contraception wasn’t readily available and, in fact, birth control pills weren’t legal for unmarried women (well teenagers). We didn’t have Planned Parenthood in every 2nd city. We finally did get clinics at college. My sister had an abortion. My mother did. She was 37 or 38 and had a 2 year old. She got eclampsia with that pregnancy and was afraid for her life. All of these abortions were before Roe v Wade. You just can’t imagine how terrified these young women were. Terrified. That’s what we have ahead of us.
Their next target is to mandate NO birth control. Will they next decide that mandated INVOLUNTARY insemination is next once birth control is banned-who knows? This iteration of SCOTUS has decided that Stare Decisis doesn't matter-will they go so far as IGNORING the 13thand 14th Constitutional Amendments? who knows?
You are right on in your assessment and the urgency at hand. I agree with everything except when you say that a national ban on abortion would come "if and when Republicans seize control of both chambers of Congress and the presidency." It wouldn't require a Republican president. It would only require two-thirds majorities in both chambers to override a Democratic presidential veto. THE MIDTERMS ARE CRITICAL.
I'm a man: I'm a psychiatrist. The cruelty, hubris, arrogance and ignorance of these men and woman (that's YOU, Amy) knows no limits. Rape? Incest? These men should be forced to watch DELIVERANCE (60s movie) and see the horrors of a man being raped. To see the terror and devastation of this act on a man; help them stand in a woman's shoes?? ---- oh, they'd say it's just a movie.
I attended a Force Multiplier event last night where Jamie Raskin was the speaker. What an inspirational individual.
Two points stuck with me: The first was his reviewing the history of the Supreme Court where he pointed out that except for the Warren years and a couple of decades, it has always functioned as a reactionary body. (Who knew?)
The second was his discussion of FASCISM. He described their methods, one of which was to create DESPAIR in all of us. Once he said that, a light went off. We can not give them this power. Find a scapegoat, create havoc and despair among those who are kind and decent.
Robert - you constantly push us not to despair. Raskin's explanation of creating this feeling in us to retain power added another nuance to your exhortations!
That's why we can't believe the trash talk from Republicans about how they are going to win the 2022 elections. We need to recognize that it is intended to demotivate and depress people in order to suppress turnout. We can't give them that power, as you point out.
I don’t think that the Republican Fascist Party is going to win this time. There are more women than men in this country! If they try to outlaw birth control, the men will join the women in voting Blue!
The days when men can have "their way" with women without factoring in the burden of raising children or the pain or risks of pregnancy or the heartache of giving up a baby are long gone. This is the bridge too far. The women of the 60's brought us to here. We are no longer there. We are not going backwards to be ruled by testosterone without morality. Me, too, is here to stay.
Yes, Janet, I'm afraid it will, and I love the cookie baking reference. I don't know if you did it deliberately but that is the very first thing Hillary Clinton said, as the governors wife in Arkansas, that got her into troubled she never really got out of. Someone asked her if she intended to continue to work as a lawyer and her response was that she wasn't going to stay home and bake cookies. Pissed off more than half the women in America.
Yeah, well, I agreed with her deplorables comment, too. This wouldn't be happening if Hillary had won. We've come a long way, baby, and I don't see us giving it up.
I loved her deplorables comment, believe me! She's either determined to keep sticking it to 'em or she never learns :-) She and Pelosi are fierce old warriors and I admire them no end. But you and your generation are carrying the torch now and you've got a job ahead of you. Your bright energy gives me new energy today!!
I agree. It is time for the younger generation to step up to the plate! I keep telling that to my grandchildren. Only two of those eligible to vote do. The others don’t. This year there will only be two of the 11 who are not old enough to vote. It is time for me to start working on them.
P.S. They got pissed off, and now coat-hangar abortions will be back in business. Don't they get it? I still make cookies, just not instead of being myself.
I sincerely hope that coat hanger abortions do not come back! When I was working at our local hospital in the early 1980’s we had a young girl admitted with abdominal pain and very low hemoglobin and hematocrit. Our surgeon was having her readied for exploratory abdominal surgery because the history that she gave did not lead to a conclusion of what the problem could be. She had a very good nurse with her who finally got her to tell her that she had had an abortion and she did not want her parents to know. Thank God she only needed a D&C and some iron to regain her health. I don’t know where she had an abortion or why she didn’t notify the clinic of her symptoms.
I am sick of these far right “so called Christians” trying to take over and make people abide by their screwed up rules. They are no more Christians than my dog is. As a matter of fact, he is pure and innocent which they certainly are not!
I spent the day trying to help my friend and cleaning lady understand why it is important that she vote. Another white friend persuaded her to register to vote, but she never has.
I am going to make sure that she votes if I have to tell her that I need her drive me to the early voting place because I am not up to it!
That won’t be a lie because I have several operations planned by my orthopedist this year. I will just tell her that since she is there, she can vote!
I've never made cookies but I used to make a mean fondu back in the day when I was still swilling white wine, smoking unfiltered Galoises, sitting in at lunch counters, and trying (I did honestly try very hard) to be married. I was really quite good at the lunch counters. The rest had to go. Alas. Life is full of losses.
Our lives have a lot of similarities, I'm three years older than you, I think, and I remember my fondue set, with its burner below and long forks. We are dating ourselves. And marriage was certainly overrated in my book, but I have two now-adult children and no grandchildren to worry about for the future of this planet and our country.
I was watching television when she said that! Good for her! I baked cookies for my family. I also went to college and became a Registered Nurse. I worked in a hospital and then in a corporation. Women can chew gum and walk at the same time!
As Robert eloquently points out, the MAJORITY on the Supreme Court got there through the machinations of a MINORITY of Americans. This Court has sided with the roughly 25% of the country that seeks the total elimination of a woman's right to decide when and whether she will bear a child. It is up to us to ensure that these right-wing zealots pay an enormous political price for their reactionary policies this November and in every subsequent election. The decent majority of Americans now have a unifying banner to march under.
Thank you, Robert, but I fear it’s even worse. The logic of the passage from the draft that you quoted says that if it’s not mentioned specifically in the Constitution, it’s not there. That would justify ruling that environmental protection is beyond Congress’ authority, much less protecting public health beyond the most immediate threats. The non-delegable duty rule would be used to strike down any regulation that the reactionaries don’t like. They would take us back to the America of the 1920s.
One more point: the struggle for a woman’s right to choose is often phrased as whether a woman can control her own body. But the reactionaries do not want merely to deprive women of the right to control of their bodies. They would deprive them of the right to control their own lives. And men, too, although they’re a little less obvious about that.
Jon, you are right that the reactionary majority also has substantive due process in their sights. Brown v. Board of Education and DOZENS of other federal rights enforceable against the states are now at risk.
That's why we need to get to work, and why those of us who are at work need to work harder! (For me, that's going to have to wait until tomorrow, though. Today is Election Day in my town, and I'm running for (elected) Town Meeting. I've been at the polls for 2 1/2 hours and go back for 2 more a little later. Real democracy! We say that if you don't win, the consolation prize is that you don't have to go to Town Meeting. Not a small gift.)
I finished in the middle of the field, but won. In my town, we say that if you don’t win, the consolation prize is that you don’t have to go to Town Meeting.
Thank you, Robert, for clarifying that how SCOTUS is overturning Roe is not a "women's" issue, but a personal constitutional rights issue. We can rely on you to promote activism over analysis and lamenting.
(I started to write "civil rights." Can you explain the difference from constitutional rights?)
I think that civil rights refer to those rights that involve political participation (voting, speech) while civil liberties involve the right to be free from government interference in our lives (search and seizure, religious freedom). All would be constitutional rights.
As you say, "The moment of crisis is upon us." Now we have to rise up, "all of us this time," as Cathy Learoyd so often reminds us, and stand shoulder to shoulder as Americans and remember what Abraham Lincoln said in his moment of crisis: "We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
I pray Alito and McConnell have reached too far. This is all on McConnell. He stole Obama's right to nominate a justice. And he abetted the fiction that Trump's nominees would treat Roe as settled law. SHAME! Shame on the partisan hacks that are now the majority of Roberts' court.
Your feelings are understandable and shared by millions of Americans. And while the Supreme Court's decision is reprehensible, democracy will survive this Court. It has sent Americans back to it the 1970s, but not to the 1860s or 1760s. We will outlast them; indeed, my fervent hope is that we will expand the Court so that the reactionary majority can serve out their terms as powerless observers to the next American civil rights revolution.
Deep Breath! American Revolution II is beginning!! We are organizing our troops in the field!. We have 6 months to oust every Republican we can! This decision will backfire bigtime. Oust the seditionists and freedom haters!
Republicans have finally achieved what they have hoped for. They will spend the rest of their party's existence back peddling from their cruel overreach. Yes, they will rue the day.
Oh! Robert, do you really think they will back peddle? This decision demonstrates just how emboldened they the extreme right court has become, much like the racist white supremacists, nationalists, gun rights advocates, and others. We are, as you wrote, in crisis.
So what you are saying here is that, if Alito's comment about originalism stands, this is ultimately a much bigger issue than abortion and Roe. This is about the 14th Amendment - (1) personal rights (2) voting rights (3) insurrection by members of the government against the government - and all subsequent amendments including presidential term limits and senators elected by popular vote. If any or all of this is true, it is a clarion call to action.
Yes, that is the basis of Alito's opinion: it it isn't in the Constitution, it doesn't exist. As another reader noted, the same rationale applies to dozens of civil rights protected under the doctrine of substantive due process--beginning with the right to attend schools from from segregation. Justice Thomas famously believes that Brown v. Board of Education was wrongly decided and should be overruled.
We now see plainly the anti-democracy stain of “originalism” in this draft SCOTUS opinion from an unelected cabal of Supreme Court Justices placed in power through appointments by executives who did not receive a majority of the popular vote. It should be evident through examining carefully the original Roe v. Wade 7:2 decision how far the Repiblican party has moved toward restriction of established Constitutional rights. Of the 7 SCOTUS Justices in the majority of the original Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, 5 were appointed by Republican Presidents and approved by a Republican controlled Senate. The death of the Stare Decisis principle is beyond tragic and portends the reversal of further rights by this radical SCOTUS majority.
This is a hair-on-fire, break-the-glass moment for our democracy and requires an appropriate reaction from voters to alter the drift away from democracy by Republicans.
American Revolution II has begun. This supreme assault on our freedoms will backfire. We have 6 months to oust the seditionists, the federalists and the antiabortionists. This ruling is energizing and focusing us! There are "troops" scattered all over this good country. ORGANIZE NOW!
In Michigan's capitol city, just in the past few weeks, we have created a group of former state public health officials, medical and nursing association leaders, retired lobbyists, and providers to forge a plan of action to assure healthcare is above politics. In Northern Michigan we have small groups working to convince "decent" and "moderate" Republicans to vote for our excellent, decent and moderate, Democratic candidates. Here we will elect a physician from Marquette, Michigan, Dr. Bob Lorinser, to Congress!
From 1971 to 1973, while a nursing student at Michigan State University, I volunteered at a free clinic. Before Roe vs. Wade, I connected distraught women to abortion providers in New York, arranging transportation and lodging, and cash. Roe v Wade literally saved lives. ORGANIZE NOW!
Thank you, again, for the clarity. It is, as you say, not just a question of women's rights but a larger and even more destructive umbrella over the violation of the basic rights of all citizens. But, as a woman who is old enough to remember the butcher-shop back-alley abortions that were the norm. before Roe, I can say that the particulars of that reality are, in themselves, enough to motivate anyone to take to the streets. The blood that flowed is symbol enough of the violence that has already been done and is about to be turned into law. Heaven help us all
I can’t breathe. I turned 20 the year Roe v Wade happened. In high school (so before that), my four best friends sought abortions. Contraception wasn’t readily available and, in fact, birth control pills weren’t legal for unmarried women (well teenagers). We didn’t have Planned Parenthood in every 2nd city. We finally did get clinics at college. My sister had an abortion. My mother did. She was 37 or 38 and had a 2 year old. She got eclampsia with that pregnancy and was afraid for her life. All of these abortions were before Roe v Wade. You just can’t imagine how terrified these young women were. Terrified. That’s what we have ahead of us.
Their next target is to mandate NO birth control. Will they next decide that mandated INVOLUNTARY insemination is next once birth control is banned-who knows? This iteration of SCOTUS has decided that Stare Decisis doesn't matter-will they go so far as IGNORING the 13thand 14th Constitutional Amendments? who knows?
I foresee no access to birth control for white women due to the prevalent "replacement theory" that so many right wing GOP believe.
I agree. People are kidding themselves when they think wealth will solve it for them.
You are right on in your assessment and the urgency at hand. I agree with everything except when you say that a national ban on abortion would come "if and when Republicans seize control of both chambers of Congress and the presidency." It wouldn't require a Republican president. It would only require two-thirds majorities in both chambers to override a Democratic presidential veto. THE MIDTERMS ARE CRITICAL.
I'm a man: I'm a psychiatrist. The cruelty, hubris, arrogance and ignorance of these men and woman (that's YOU, Amy) knows no limits. Rape? Incest? These men should be forced to watch DELIVERANCE (60s movie) and see the horrors of a man being raped. To see the terror and devastation of this act on a man; help them stand in a woman's shoes?? ---- oh, they'd say it's just a movie.
I attended a Force Multiplier event last night where Jamie Raskin was the speaker. What an inspirational individual.
Two points stuck with me: The first was his reviewing the history of the Supreme Court where he pointed out that except for the Warren years and a couple of decades, it has always functioned as a reactionary body. (Who knew?)
The second was his discussion of FASCISM. He described their methods, one of which was to create DESPAIR in all of us. Once he said that, a light went off. We can not give them this power. Find a scapegoat, create havoc and despair among those who are kind and decent.
Robert - you constantly push us not to despair. Raskin's explanation of creating this feeling in us to retain power added another nuance to your exhortations!
That's why we can't believe the trash talk from Republicans about how they are going to win the 2022 elections. We need to recognize that it is intended to demotivate and depress people in order to suppress turnout. We can't give them that power, as you point out.
I don’t think that the Republican Fascist Party is going to win this time. There are more women than men in this country! If they try to outlaw birth control, the men will join the women in voting Blue!
Excellent information. Thanks.
right on brother
The days when men can have "their way" with women without factoring in the burden of raising children or the pain or risks of pregnancy or the heartache of giving up a baby are long gone. This is the bridge too far. The women of the 60's brought us to here. We are no longer there. We are not going backwards to be ruled by testosterone without morality. Me, too, is here to stay.
I so hope you are right. We women of the sixties despair to see us this close to ruin. Hang in there with your energy and optimism. Thank you.
A fight will be necessary, and victory at the polls. But they will not find us baking cookies for them as they toast a beer to Kavanaugh.
Yes, Janet, I'm afraid it will, and I love the cookie baking reference. I don't know if you did it deliberately but that is the very first thing Hillary Clinton said, as the governors wife in Arkansas, that got her into troubled she never really got out of. Someone asked her if she intended to continue to work as a lawyer and her response was that she wasn't going to stay home and bake cookies. Pissed off more than half the women in America.
Yeah, well, I agreed with her deplorables comment, too. This wouldn't be happening if Hillary had won. We've come a long way, baby, and I don't see us giving it up.
I loved her deplorables comment, believe me! She's either determined to keep sticking it to 'em or she never learns :-) She and Pelosi are fierce old warriors and I admire them no end. But you and your generation are carrying the torch now and you've got a job ahead of you. Your bright energy gives me new energy today!!
I agree. It is time for the younger generation to step up to the plate! I keep telling that to my grandchildren. Only two of those eligible to vote do. The others don’t. This year there will only be two of the 11 who are not old enough to vote. It is time for me to start working on them.
P.S. They got pissed off, and now coat-hangar abortions will be back in business. Don't they get it? I still make cookies, just not instead of being myself.
I sincerely hope that coat hanger abortions do not come back! When I was working at our local hospital in the early 1980’s we had a young girl admitted with abdominal pain and very low hemoglobin and hematocrit. Our surgeon was having her readied for exploratory abdominal surgery because the history that she gave did not lead to a conclusion of what the problem could be. She had a very good nurse with her who finally got her to tell her that she had had an abortion and she did not want her parents to know. Thank God she only needed a D&C and some iron to regain her health. I don’t know where she had an abortion or why she didn’t notify the clinic of her symptoms.
I am sick of these far right “so called Christians” trying to take over and make people abide by their screwed up rules. They are no more Christians than my dog is. As a matter of fact, he is pure and innocent which they certainly are not!
I spent the day trying to help my friend and cleaning lady understand why it is important that she vote. Another white friend persuaded her to register to vote, but she never has.
I am going to make sure that she votes if I have to tell her that I need her drive me to the early voting place because I am not up to it!
That won’t be a lie because I have several operations planned by my orthopedist this year. I will just tell her that since she is there, she can vote!
You go, girl
Good for you!
I've never made cookies but I used to make a mean fondu back in the day when I was still swilling white wine, smoking unfiltered Galoises, sitting in at lunch counters, and trying (I did honestly try very hard) to be married. I was really quite good at the lunch counters. The rest had to go. Alas. Life is full of losses.
Our lives have a lot of similarities, I'm three years older than you, I think, and I remember my fondue set, with its burner below and long forks. We are dating ourselves. And marriage was certainly overrated in my book, but I have two now-adult children and no grandchildren to worry about for the future of this planet and our country.
I was watching television when she said that! Good for her! I baked cookies for my family. I also went to college and became a Registered Nurse. I worked in a hospital and then in a corporation. Women can chew gum and walk at the same time!
Peace reigns where women rule. No surprise.
Probably explains a lot of the animosity against us :-)
💙
❤
As Robert eloquently points out, the MAJORITY on the Supreme Court got there through the machinations of a MINORITY of Americans. This Court has sided with the roughly 25% of the country that seeks the total elimination of a woman's right to decide when and whether she will bear a child. It is up to us to ensure that these right-wing zealots pay an enormous political price for their reactionary policies this November and in every subsequent election. The decent majority of Americans now have a unifying banner to march under.
Thank you, Robert, but I fear it’s even worse. The logic of the passage from the draft that you quoted says that if it’s not mentioned specifically in the Constitution, it’s not there. That would justify ruling that environmental protection is beyond Congress’ authority, much less protecting public health beyond the most immediate threats. The non-delegable duty rule would be used to strike down any regulation that the reactionaries don’t like. They would take us back to the America of the 1920s.
One more point: the struggle for a woman’s right to choose is often phrased as whether a woman can control her own body. But the reactionaries do not want merely to deprive women of the right to control of their bodies. They would deprive them of the right to control their own lives. And men, too, although they’re a little less obvious about that.
To the barricades!
Jon, you are right that the reactionary majority also has substantive due process in their sights. Brown v. Board of Education and DOZENS of other federal rights enforceable against the states are now at risk.
That's why we need to get to work, and why those of us who are at work need to work harder! (For me, that's going to have to wait until tomorrow, though. Today is Election Day in my town, and I'm running for (elected) Town Meeting. I've been at the polls for 2 1/2 hours and go back for 2 more a little later. Real democracy! We say that if you don't win, the consolation prize is that you don't have to go to Town Meeting. Not a small gift.)
Woo hoo, good for you for stepping up! Let us know how you do, and good luck!
I finished in the middle of the field, but won. In my town, we say that if you don’t win, the consolation prize is that you don’t have to go to Town Meeting.
Congratulations, and big hat tip for stepping up!
Thank you, Robert, for clarifying that how SCOTUS is overturning Roe is not a "women's" issue, but a personal constitutional rights issue. We can rely on you to promote activism over analysis and lamenting.
(I started to write "civil rights." Can you explain the difference from constitutional rights?)
I think that civil rights refer to those rights that involve political participation (voting, speech) while civil liberties involve the right to be free from government interference in our lives (search and seizure, religious freedom). All would be constitutional rights.
A perfect distinction.
❤
As you say, "The moment of crisis is upon us." Now we have to rise up, "all of us this time," as Cathy Learoyd so often reminds us, and stand shoulder to shoulder as Americans and remember what Abraham Lincoln said in his moment of crisis: "We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
I pray Alito and McConnell have reached too far. This is all on McConnell. He stole Obama's right to nominate a justice. And he abetted the fiction that Trump's nominees would treat Roe as settled law. SHAME! Shame on the partisan hacks that are now the majority of Roberts' court.
I am literally overwhelmed with anxiety as it seems as if our democracy is hanging by a thread. I agree with Deborah....I cannot breathe.
Your feelings are understandable and shared by millions of Americans. And while the Supreme Court's decision is reprehensible, democracy will survive this Court. It has sent Americans back to it the 1970s, but not to the 1860s or 1760s. We will outlast them; indeed, my fervent hope is that we will expand the Court so that the reactionary majority can serve out their terms as powerless observers to the next American civil rights revolution.
Deep Breath! American Revolution II is beginning!! We are organizing our troops in the field!. We have 6 months to oust every Republican we can! This decision will backfire bigtime. Oust the seditionists and freedom haters!
These so-called Christians have been fighting the war on women for a long time now. The gloves are off, and they will rue the day.
Republicans have finally achieved what they have hoped for. They will spend the rest of their party's existence back peddling from their cruel overreach. Yes, they will rue the day.
Oh! Robert, do you really think they will back peddle? This decision demonstrates just how emboldened they the extreme right court has become, much like the racist white supremacists, nationalists, gun rights advocates, and others. We are, as you wrote, in crisis.
So what you are saying here is that, if Alito's comment about originalism stands, this is ultimately a much bigger issue than abortion and Roe. This is about the 14th Amendment - (1) personal rights (2) voting rights (3) insurrection by members of the government against the government - and all subsequent amendments including presidential term limits and senators elected by popular vote. If any or all of this is true, it is a clarion call to action.
Yes, that is the basis of Alito's opinion: it it isn't in the Constitution, it doesn't exist. As another reader noted, the same rationale applies to dozens of civil rights protected under the doctrine of substantive due process--beginning with the right to attend schools from from segregation. Justice Thomas famously believes that Brown v. Board of Education was wrongly decided and should be overruled.
That man is just a trainwreck
We now see plainly the anti-democracy stain of “originalism” in this draft SCOTUS opinion from an unelected cabal of Supreme Court Justices placed in power through appointments by executives who did not receive a majority of the popular vote. It should be evident through examining carefully the original Roe v. Wade 7:2 decision how far the Repiblican party has moved toward restriction of established Constitutional rights. Of the 7 SCOTUS Justices in the majority of the original Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, 5 were appointed by Republican Presidents and approved by a Republican controlled Senate. The death of the Stare Decisis principle is beyond tragic and portends the reversal of further rights by this radical SCOTUS majority.
This is a hair-on-fire, break-the-glass moment for our democracy and requires an appropriate reaction from voters to alter the drift away from democracy by Republicans.
American Revolution II has begun. This supreme assault on our freedoms will backfire. We have 6 months to oust the seditionists, the federalists and the antiabortionists. This ruling is energizing and focusing us! There are "troops" scattered all over this good country. ORGANIZE NOW!
In Michigan's capitol city, just in the past few weeks, we have created a group of former state public health officials, medical and nursing association leaders, retired lobbyists, and providers to forge a plan of action to assure healthcare is above politics. In Northern Michigan we have small groups working to convince "decent" and "moderate" Republicans to vote for our excellent, decent and moderate, Democratic candidates. Here we will elect a physician from Marquette, Michigan, Dr. Bob Lorinser, to Congress!
$upport Dr. Bob:
https://www.votedrbob.com/
From 1971 to 1973, while a nursing student at Michigan State University, I volunteered at a free clinic. Before Roe vs. Wade, I connected distraught women to abortion providers in New York, arranging transportation and lodging, and cash. Roe v Wade literally saved lives. ORGANIZE NOW!
A quibble: Politico published the leaked draft. Politico is not the leaker.
Thank you, again, for the clarity. It is, as you say, not just a question of women's rights but a larger and even more destructive umbrella over the violation of the basic rights of all citizens. But, as a woman who is old enough to remember the butcher-shop back-alley abortions that were the norm. before Roe, I can say that the particulars of that reality are, in themselves, enough to motivate anyone to take to the streets. The blood that flowed is symbol enough of the violence that has already been done and is about to be turned into law. Heaven help us all