The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the case Dobbs v Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization <\/em>this week. It is a direct challenge to Roe v Wade, <\/em>the 1973 case that allowed women to legally access abortions throughout the United States up through twenty weeks of pregnancy. The essence of the Dobbs <\/em>argument, was that Roe <\/em>was \u201cwrongly decided\u201d by the \u201973 Court, when it discerned a Constitutional right of women to control their own bodies. The state of Mississippi (Dobbs) <\/em>argued that the United States Constitution is \u201cneutral\u201d on the that issue, and therefore their state should be able to regulate it under the Tenth Amendment as \u201ca power not delegated\u201d to the Federal government. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a singular reason why Mississippi brought this direct challenge to Roe<\/em>: the changes in the Justices who will decide the case. Due to two deaths, a resignation, and the machinations of Mitch McConnell; President Donald Trump was able to appoint three Justices to the nine judge panel. All three were historically against Roe, <\/em>but pledged \u201cloyalty\u201d to the precedents set by prior Courts. Now that they are \u201cin the chair\u201d though, their arguments demonstrate a willingness to throw the Roe <\/em>decision out. <\/em> Along with two already sitting Justices, they have a five vote majority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The politics aside, the Court is on the cusp of making a major change in direction.\u00a0\u00a0The \u201cdiscerned right\u201d of women to control their bodies is only one case. There’s a series of decisions made by the Court about greater personal freedoms, all based on similar legal reasoning.\u00a0\u00a0The Court reasoned that States could not ban interracial marriage (Loving v Virginia)<\/em>, use of birth control (Griswold v Connecticut),<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0abortions (Roe v Wade and Casey v Planned Parenthood),\u00a0<\/em>homosexual activity (Romer v Evans)\u00a0<\/em>and most recently gay marriage (Obergefell v Hodges).\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The basic argument is that the Constitution contains a right to privacy and to equal protection under the law.\u00a0\u00a0Since that right is in the Constitution, the individual states do not have the authority to control those private behaviors.\u00a0\u00a0 Mississippi is directly challenging that concept. If the Court accepts the reasoning, all of these other precedents are at risk as well.\u00a0\u00a0It doesn\u2019t mean that abortions, interracial marriages, gay marriages, birth control or homosexual activity could become \u201cillegal\u201d nationwide.\u00a0\u00a0But it could mean that individual states would regulate those actions differently, depending on the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We already see that occurring with abortion laws in the United States. In many states, the legislatures are dominated by those who want abortions completely banned. Some of those states have done everything they could, within the scope of the Roe and Casey <\/em>decisions, to regulate abortions from within their borders. Missouri and Texas, have succeeded. Other states recognize the \u201cspirit\u201d of Roe and Casey, <\/em>and only regulate abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy, when the baby could survive outside of the mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We saw the same thing prior to the\u00a0Obergefell\u00a0<\/em>decision, where some states allowed gay marriage, some states established a second form of \u201cunion\u201d to encompass it, and many states, like Ohio, went out of their way to pass laws banning same-sex unions.\u00a0\u00a0A couple could be married in Massachusetts or in a \u201cunion\u201d in Vermont, but their relationship was not recognized in Ohio or Kentucky.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n This case is an outgrowth of the great crisis that America is facing today.\u00a0\u00a0We are a nation of change.\u00a0\u00a0The dominant majority of \u201cwhite people\u201d will no longer be the majority in a few years.\u00a0\u00a0The United States has always prided itself as a nation of immigrants. But when those immigrants stopped looking like \u201ceveryone else\u201d, they were perceived by some to be a threat.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n I can sit in a classroom today in little Pataskala, Ohio, and have students who are Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Sikh; as well as Southern Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterians, Lutherans, a couple of Jewish kids and a whole lot of non-believers.\u00a0\u00a0Even this \u201cwhite ‘Christian’ suburban community\u201d has changed.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also in that high school classroom are straight kids, gay kids, trans kids, and lots of kids who don\u2019t \u201cidentify\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For some in America, all of this change is incredibly threatening.\u00a0\u00a0It challenges their vision of what \u201cAmerica\u201d should \u201clook like\u201d and \u201cact like\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Their state legislatures are enforcing that vision of human behavior. And they are threatened by women choosing to have abortions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their argument is that they are protecting a life by preventing abortion.\u00a0\u00a0And they have every right to have that belief.\u00a0\u00a0The question the Supreme Court answered in\u00a0Roe\u00a0<\/em>and all of these other cases, is that \u201cpersonal beliefs\u201d should not be enforceable by law when they are about private behavior.\u00a0\u00a0The\u00a0Roe\u00a0<\/em>decision carefully parsed when the state had an interest in the growing fetus, and determined that its rights outweighed the privacy rights of the mother only after it could physically survive outside her womb.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\nLegal Weeds<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Divided America<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Let Freedom Ring<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Who Decides What to Believe<\/h3>\n\n\n\n