Photo: Perry Spring - Getty Images
The contemplation of justice statue outside the US Supreme Court
The lies the Supreme Court used to justify abolishing a half-century of constitutional rights for American women to make their own decisions about abortion caught up with those justices last week and most of them ran for cover.
The Republican-appointed supermajority on the Supreme Court would rather not be hearing another rightwing attack on abortion rights by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, the Trumpiest regional appeals court in America, during this election year but they brought it on themselves.
It was the 5th Circuit court’s support for Mississippi’s brazen destruction of Roe v. Wade that the court eagerly used to roll back 50 years of constitutional rights for women to make decisions about their own bodies and their own lives.
Guess what? When Supreme Court justices destroy religious freedom in America to allow a minority of rightwing politicians to impose their personal religious beliefs on everyone else by law, the issue isn’t over. They have to keep reliving their destruction of constitutional rights in our democracy over and over again. Happy Groundhog Day.
Raging Backlash
The raging political backlash creating record turnouts in state elections restoring the constitutional rights of women to control their own lives isn’t going to die down. Neither at this point will the nation’s most anti-abortion courts–the current Supreme Court and the 5th Circuit appeals court–ever support the freedom of women to make decisions about their own lives.
No one should be fooled into believing Supreme Court justices are moderating their opposition to abortion by dodging for now whether to ban medication abortions that use safe and effective nonsurgical abortion pills. Abortion opponents despise abortion pills because they are safe, effective and easily obtained from abortion rights advocates to be used privately at home. They’re the most common abortion procedure today and the only one that can be self-administered in states where abortion is banned.
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The only reason the justices who abolished abortion rights aren’t ready to ban abortion pills yet is they haven’t figured out a fraudulent legal cover story to do so. Fewer than 1% of millions of abortions using the pills over the past quarter-century have ever resulted in any physical complications. They’re safer than over-the-counter Tylenol.
That didn’t stop the House Republican Study Committee, which includes 80% of House Republicans, from releasing a budget last week that would rescind the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of abortion pills and embrace a nationwide abortion ban from the moment of conception.
Separately, on the rightwing Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 website detailing Trump’s plans to act as dictator in his second term not just on Day One, but all the other days as well lists withdrawing federal approval of abortion pills, “the single greatest threat to unborn children,” as a top priority for the former president right up there with jailing the Biden family.
That puts Trump at odds with all three of his Supreme Court appointees. Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett appeared satisfied with government assurances doctors opposed to abortion were already shielded under federal law from participating in the procedure. Justice Gorsuch sided with Justice Jackson in objecting to the overreach by the seven anti-abortion doctors who were exempt from using the abortion drugs suing to prevent doctors with no objections to providing abortion care from using safe medications.
As expected, the strongest objections came from Justices Alito and Thomas who absurdly invoked the 151-year-old Comstock Act passed in 1873 by crusading U.S. Postal Inspector Anthony Comstock obsessed with banning “obscene, lewd or lascivious” material from the mail including pornography and contraceptives.
Against the Majority
Alito and Thomas made it clear from the moment Alito’s draft destroying constitutional abortion rights began circulating that it was just the beginning. Racial, cultural and sexual diversity were out of control in America. All different kinds of people who looked nothing like Americans were claiming to have constitutional rights now. They wanted it stopped.
But there’s a large majority of Americans who appreciate the rich, cultural diversity of our country. Kids who grew up in small towns like I did are moving to metropolitan areas because of everything that is going on there. Republicans are terrified of losing the votes of the violent White supremacists who support Trump. They should be more worried about losing the votes of their own kids. Kids know how absurd it is to ban books about sex and America’s racist history from their schools instead of banning the assault weapons that could kill them tomorrow.
Most Americans have no desire to live 25 years, 50 years or 150 years in the past. A majority of Americans have been waiting four years for Trump to be prosecuted for the most violent insurrection in history to overthrow democracy.
Trump’s Supreme Court is intentionally delaying that prosecution, but America’s voters can assure the trial takes place and their fight to restore democracy can continue.
