12/06/2021
Fb asks me what is on my mind! It's the Supreme Court! These are my thoughts -- and I hold it against no one who happens to disagree with me and I'm willing to genuinely engage with anyone at all! For me, it's the examination of the reasoning and the functioning of the Court that is important. Here it goes:
Charles Blow's wonderful essay in the NYT this morning reminds us how badly the Supreme Court has often failed its country in the past and how it now seems poised to do so yet again. One begins to wonder whether the Court has anything but pain to offer the vast majority of our people at all. The unexamined, uncritical arguments put forward against the constitutional right of abortion by some of the Justices at the recent hearing were simply sophomoric (the word "abortion" isn't in the Constitution: women always have the (mind-blowing, morality-shattering) option of adoption (of leaving "it"--their child -- on the police station steps); even the earliest fetus has a (protected) interest in life; just let the states do with women as they please). They likely don't even admit to themselves that they are just putting their own religious values into play. Or, if not religious values, their (unrecognized and illegitimate) need to control the lives of women, just as their forefathers needed to control the lives of people who were Black. Yes, viability is a shifting cut off point. But it doesn't follow that what counts as viability under medicine today isn't just about right. if grounded in a more credible and more stable cut off point, one plausibly tied to the ongoing consciousness that arises around the 26th week and one that, like Roe, fully respects the woman's choice throughout much of the pregnancy but allows for the regulation and even prohibition of abortion late in pregnancy.
