By striking down Roe v. Wade which has for nearly five decades protected the right of women to terminate pregnancy, the U.S. Supreme Court has not only turned its back on legal precedent and many of their own personal pledges to uphold Roe as “settled law” made during U.S. Senate confirmation hearings, it has assured that the United States will remain a nation deeply divided over the fundamental right of women to choose. So-called “trigger” laws mean roughly half of states as close to Maryland as West Virginia and as large as Texas and Ohio will soon drastically restrict access to abortion. Thankfully, Maryland is not one of those states, but the consequences of this dramatic and historic reversal are far-reaching and serious, particularly to women who may not even realize they are pregnant at this moment — or until they are past the six-week window for abortion that some states will now (or soon) impose.
Given the draft opinion leaked earlier this year, the ruling comes as no surprise. This was delivered by a Supreme Court now firmly controlled by justices with extreme right-wing views who just one day earlier saw fit to ignore precedent and reject New York’s century-old limits on carrying guns outside the home. But it also raises a question: What other fundamental rights will be struck down by the conservative majority that so willingly sets aside stare decisis and did the political bidding of their political benefactors? Same-sex marriage? The right to contraception? A return to bans on sodomy? The court’s majority appears divided on them — for now.
Whatever protests and speechmaking we witness out of Washington, D.C., in the days ahead, it seems highly unlikely that much can be done about it in Congress where the Senate is too evenly divided to ever imagine a legislative remedy — including a suspension of the Senate filibuster rule that would be required to enable passage of most any legislation of consequence. And while we are proud to see our fellow Americans exercise their free speech rights, perhaps the best that can be hoped is for voters to recognize that who they elect to the White House and Congress matters — Republicans, particularly under Donald Trump, have made a near-universal opposition to women’s reproductive rights one of the defining tenets of their political party.
