Overturning Roe Has Relegated Women to Second Class Citizen Status
In less than 24 hours, the Supreme Court not only expanded gun rights in a time America is reckoning with easy access to guns and mass shootings, but also overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that protected a pregnant woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. In a lesser known case, the Court ruled police officers can’t be sued for not reading Miranda Rights prior to arresting someone.
Well, I don’t know what else could be a bigger blow to liberal America, women, and the families of mass shootings, all within a short span. When I say the Supreme Court is losing legitimacy, I don’t just mean the Supreme Court is making decisions we don’t like. To be honest, I was naive to think two years ago a conservative Supreme Court would never touch Roe v. Wade.
Obviously, these rulings did not come overnight, in light of a clerk at the Court leaking the Roe draft. But part of me was naive, hoping all the protests and publicity that came with the leak would change their minds. Alas, they didn’t.
According to The Economist, this means states are now free to ban abortions entirely.
In a 5–4 decision, the Court ruled to overturn Roe. And it might not stop with Roe — Clarence Thomas, who wrote the majority decision, says Dobbs v. Jackson sets the precedent for other major substantive due process cases, like Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell, which deal with the right to contraceptives, the right to consensual gay sex, and the right to same-sex marriage respectively. That’s also some pretty disgusting reasoning,
Well, it seems like the Supreme Court is moving too fast for even Chief Justice John Roberts, who agreed that a Mississippi abortion restriction was constitutional, but did not agree with overturning Roe, which is why some outlets report it was a 6–3 majority while others report it was a 5–4 majority. Roberts’s philosophy of judicial restraint is under siege, and by most accounts, he has lost control of his Court, as the majority wants to move a lot faster.
The feeling of shock is real. My Instagram feed is blowing up with protests and Twitter posts about the state of America and its democracy. As a…
