The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson overturns 50 years of legalized abortion in the United States and firmly establishes the court as the chief legislative branch of the Republican Party. The Dobbs decision rescinds the 1972 Roe v. Wade and 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey precedents that affirmed a women’s right to choose and is the first time in our country’s history in which the Supreme Court has taken away a constitutional right from its citizens.
What changed? Not the biology of abortion or reproduction. Not the essentially immutable United States Constitution. What changed is the political composition of the court, and, in particular, the appointment and confirmation of six Republican justices, five of whom are firmly aligned with the radical and often irrational right wing of the Republican Party.
The same partisan court has also issued recent judgments on Second Amendment gun rights that will occasion more gun violence, on the funding of religious schools that threatens the long-held American tenet of separation of church and state, and on prohibiting the Environmental Protection Agency from upholding basic anti-pollution regulations. All four verdicts were political decisions made under the pretense of constitutionality, and all enact central Republican legislative priorities that elected Republican leaders cannot effectuate because we still live in an actual democracy in which the vast majority of Americans are in opposition. This is what Republican judicial activism looks like, and the Supreme Court serves as the unelected cavalry.
Vote!
Buddy Ullman, Portland
