The Court Wrongly Strips Women of a Fundamental Right
On June 24, 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court, in an unprecedented power grab, eviscerated a fundamental, constitutional right. This decision will be judged by history as harshly as the decades have condemned Dred Scott and Korematsu. The willingness of the far-right majority to strip women of the right to abortion demonstrates contempt for women’s rights, bodily autonomy, history, reason and legal precedent. The practice of abortion, contrary to Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion is, in fact, deeply rooted in our history. At the time of the founding, state laws protected access to abortion until the point of quickening. As the world has long known the Court, in the landmark ruling in 1973 in Roe v. Wade, held that women possess a constitutional right to govern their own reproductive organs. Justice Alito’s lame effort to undercut the right of abortion because it is not enumerated in the Constitution, is of no moment.
Indeed, the Court’s acknowledgment in Roe of an unenumerated fundamental right reflects a century of rulings that have identified various unenumerated rights that enjoy the same status as those articulated in the Constitution. The Court, for example, has identified as unenumerated constitutional rights, freedom of association, a right to travel, the right of parents to raise their children in accord with their own values, a right to contraceptives, a right to interracial marriage, a right of individuals to keep and bear arms for their self-defense, a right to same-sex marriage and a right to privacy, among others. The Court’s ruling in Roe has been affirmed numerous times by Justices nominated by both Republican and Democratic presidents, conservative and liberal alike, and it has been considered settled law. The ruling in Dobbs leaves our nation to wonder: Which rights, if any, are secure?
A radical majority on the Court, including members who, during their confirmation hearings, left no doubt that they considered Roe to be settled law, has engaged in a raw exercise of power that undermines its legitimacy. It betrays Alexander Hamilton’s description of the judiciary as the “least dangerous branch.”
The tragic impact of the Court’s ruling in Dobbs was crisply summarized by the dissenting Justices—Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. “It says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of. A State can force her to bring pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs. An abortion restriction, the majority holds, is permissible whenever rational, the lowest level of scrutiny known to the law. And because, as the Court has often stated protecting fetal life is rational, States will feel free to enact all manner of restrictions.”
Dobbs has relegated women to second-class citizenship. Their liberty is subject to the arbitrary whims, wayward values and deeply engrained sexism of those who serve in state legislatures. The Alturas Institute stands with those citizens—women and men—who will carry the torch--at the polls, in the legislative arena and in the massive marches and protests that must come--to regain the power and fundamental right of women to make their own reproductive choices.
Senate Must Pass Voting Rights Legislation
Time is quickly running out for the Senate to pass key legislation necessary to protect voting rights and our democracy. GOP obstruction has stalled passage of two landmark measures—the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act—which can preserve minority voting rights and protect against voter suppression laws enacted in some 20 states, brazen partisan gerrymandering and sabotage of the Electoral College count. If republicans are unwilling, as it appears they are, to pass these measures then Senate democrats must be prepared to abolish the filibuster in the name of securing our democracy. Democrats are facing a ticking clock. GOP-enacted voter suppression laws represent an existential threat to our democracy and democrats cannot dither. Once lost, our democracy may be irretrievable.
January 6 Investigation Critical to Future of American Democracy
The House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol is on the front line of the defense of American Democracy. It has justly voted to hold former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in criminal contempt for defying a subpoena. Disclosure of text messages to and from Meadows, including those from sympathetic GOP lawmakers, reveal that he was at the epicenter of communications and reaction on the day that pro-Trump forces staged a coup, which sought to derail the official Electoral College count, with the hope of keeping Donald Trump in power. Meadows’ testimony before the House select committee can further illuminate Trump’s role in the planning and incitement of the attack on the Capitol and why Trump refused to intervene to halt the insurrection. A yet unnamed Trump advisor has stated that Trump watched the mayhem with enthusiasm, happy to see the violence carried out in his name. The House committee is to be commended for its yeoman work in seeking the truth of January 6 and holding accountable those who masterminded, supported, aided, abetted and conducted the assault on our Constitutional Democracy.
Supreme Court’s Institutional Integrity at Risk
Chief Justice John Roberts, an ardent believer in the premise that the Supreme Court has a solemn responsibility to defend its institutional integrity, lamented the Court’s decision to let stand a Texas statute, S.B. 8, which prohibits abortion after six weeks. As the world knows, this law eviscerates the fundamental right of women to obtain an abortion, first declared by the Court in 1973 in Roe v. Wade and reiterated numerous times over the past half century. Chief Justice Roberts quoted an 1809 opinion: “If the legislatures of the several states may, at will, annul the judgments of the courts of the United States, and destroy the rights acquired under those judgments, the constitution becomes a solemn mockery.” Roberts added: “The nature of the federal right infringed does not matter; it is the role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system that is at stake.” The Court, currently dominated by five ultra-conservatives—Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanugh and Barrett—has empowered state nullification of a landmark precedent that threatens the rule of law and the Constitution. The behavior of this quintet sounds the alarm bells: no precedent is safe.
Equal Protection: Remembering Rosa Parks This Dec. 1
America is forever indebted to Rosa Parks for the courage she exhibited on December 1, 1955, when she refused to surrender her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white man, a violation of the city’s segregation laws. Her subsequent arrest unleashed the Civil Rights Movement, a historic demonstration of the capacity of citizens to engage in non-violent civil disobedience for the purpose of exposing outrageous, illegal and immoral government actions and policies. Her bravery and self-sacrifice remind a nation of the importance of fighting for the 14th Amendment principle of equal protection of the law, the foundation of American Constitutionalism, justice and the rule of law. Denial of equal protection--to minorities, women and members of the LGBTQ community—must be confronted at every turn. Otherwise, exceptions to it become the norm. Silence in the face of injustice is not an option.