Statement on the Overturning of Roe v Wade
24 JUNE, 2022.
Today, the Supreme Court delivered a decision that overturned the prior decision in Roe v Wade, the case that limited the States’ powers in determining the legality of abortion. We know it today as the “abortion decision” but in truth it was much more than that. It was a declaration that the United States respected and protected a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, sometimes summarized as the slogan “My Body, My Choice.”
This bedrock principle of bodily autonomy is fundamental to our understanding of human rights.
The principle of bodily autonomy is not merely that you can do with your body whatever you wish, but that no one can use your body for any purpose that you do not explicitly consent to.
In almost every other circumstance, we respect this principle absolutely.
No one can take your blood for donation without you asking, even if that blood would save someone’s life.
No surgeon can take your organs without your explicit consent even if that organ would save someone’s life which even applies if you were dead. Unless you had already consented to be an organ donor, we respect your bodily autonomy even in death.
But now, if you get pregnant, you have less bodily autonomy than a corpse. With this decision, The State now has the power to demand you allow your body to be used to carry and bear someone without your consent under penalty of law. This is an intolerable violation of the human rights of anyone who can become pregnant.
There are those who, for their own reasons, will celebrate this decision. And there are those who, delighting in cruelty, will take joy in witnessing the pain of millions who are hurt by this decision.
What they fear more than anything is that this will produce a backlash that will lead to people standing up, organizing and fighting for the restoration of human rights for all people affected by this decision.
As a Pagan religious organization, The Troth recognizes that the erosion of human rights for any person is an erosion of human rights for all of us. It’s not too far to imagine that a Court who can strip bodily autonomy in one decision can strip away religious freedom in another.
This is our fight too.
If you stand for universal human rights, The Troth stands with you.
Comments
Means vs. Ends
There is a chain of related Supreme Court decisions beginning with Griswold v. Connecticut. Roe v. Wade came later and was based on the reasoning of Griswold. If you have not read these decisions, I strongly suggest that you do so. They are readily available on the internet.
I approve of the outcomes in these cases. I think people should be able to freely purchase and use contraceptives (Griswold), and the decision to abort a pregnancy lies with the pregnant woman and her doctor (Roe). There is more I could say about this second case, but that is not the topic here.
Please reread the previous paragraph. Maybe reread it a few more times, just to be really sure you get what I said. If we end up disagreeing about something later, you don’t get to say you misunderstood my position, or that I failed to make it clear.
So we have these historic decisions, and we have their outcomes. We also need to think about how these decisions came about, because it matters. Once again, I suggest that you read them if you have not. Don’t read someone else’s commentary, or rely on what someone else told you. Read the actual text from the Supreme Court. Then take a day or two and think about what they said.
Griswold (and implicitly those decisions that came after) is based on an extraordinarily weak line of reasoning. As with Plessy v. Ferguson, it is easy to see this as a court trying very hard to reach a particular outcome, regardless of what they had to say to get there. Pretty much anything will do, and that’s pretty much what they did. These decisions might have made for an interesting article in The Atlantic. But for a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, they are inadequate, based literally on shadows and smoke. Yes, literally. If you haven’t yet read the text, go and do so now. Then look up those long words so you’re sure what they mean. Be prepared to come face to face with shadows and smoke from the highest court in the land.
These decisions had consequences of which I thoroughly approve (see above). But they are based on truly crappy legal reasoning. As examples of Legislating From The Bench, they are blatant.
If the Supreme Court can successfully use crappy arguments to support outcomes that I approve, it can just as easily use crappy arguments to support outcomes that I do not approve. That does not just worry me. Worry does not begin to describe how I feel about this.
After running the country for even longer than Roe, Plessy was overturned. Nowadays, this is widely celebrated as Civilization Moving Forward, and I agree with that assessment. One can also see it as the Supreme Court cleaning up after its own mistakes. It takes a lot of nerve to do this. It certainly took a lot of nerve back when they did it, when Jim Crow was a major player in national politics.
There are those who see the outcome of Roe (legal abortion) as even worse than the outcome of Plessy (separate but equal). I am not one of them (see above). But this is not about outcomes. This is about how the machinery of law is used, or abused, and the precedent that sets for later use, or abuse. Once again, the Supreme Court has cleaned up after its own mistakes.
Now we have to deal with the post-Roe situation. It will not come easily. I hope people will use their governments closer to home to put in place laws that work, instead of laws that don’t. Kansas has already managed to affirm this. Or perhaps our federal legislators will finally get brave enough to make a workable law, then go on the record as voting for it.
I wonder if The Troth needed to make a statement on this topic, because it is off-topic for its purpose and mission. If diversity is supposed to mean something other than what it does not, you might want to think about that in the future. Still, the statement has been made, some of which I will go along with. But I will not go along with self-righteous statements about “those who, delighting in cruelty, will take joy in witnessing the pain of millions who are hurt by this decision.” Exactly who are you talking about here? Real people? Or caricatures you enjoy trundling around in your head? What do you really get out of talking like that? If your goal is to move the world closer to working well, quotes like the one here need to stop. I am disgusted that an organization I once led would say such a thing in public as an official communication.