Monday, June 27, 2022

Today's News: Pro-Choice Underground

Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman writes: 
It is no exaggeration to say that the Dobbs decision, written by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by four other conservatives, is an act of institutional suicide for the Supreme Court. 
The legitimacy of the modern court depends on its capacity to protect the vulnerable by limiting how the majority can infringe on basic rights to liberty and equality. 
The Dobbs majority not only takes the court out of that business. It holds that the court should never have expanded the protection of liberty and equality in the first place.
 ...State legislatures can and will now pass laws that violate or eliminate those rights. The lower courts will have to adjudicate them. Ultimately the Supreme Court will have to weigh in again. 
The reason all this will happen is that the court didn’t just overturn Roe. By overturning Casey, it called into question the core idea that the justices follow precedent. Casey stood for the idea that the court would uphold its past decisions absent a major, transformative reason to do so. Under Casey, lower courts would leave precedent in place. 
That norm is now gone. It’s open season on fundamental rights. 
 ...the modern Constitution will never be the same. Neither will the Supreme Court. 
Dobbs will go down as one of the worst decisions in the court’s history. Dobbs reverses rights on which the whole country has relied for half a century. The court has never done that before. The consequences will be disastrous — and far-reaching. 
And it is getting very weird, very fast. 
America now has a new cottage industry, a kind of pro-choice underground sub-culture now developing quickly, with the goal of alerting women whether states have abortion access, and helping women in need to travel to the states that do, or to Canada. 
Here is advice on how to secretly find and book abortions using library computers so as to not leave any digital breadcrumbs for police agents to find. And here's how to wipe a phone:  The Department of Justice says it will not permit states to stop women from getting FDA-approved abortion pills, nor will they tolerate states criminalizing giving assistance to women and travel to other states. 
When Bobby Kennedy's justice department decided to ensure the civil rights of voting workers in the southern states, Kennedy sent 400 US Marshals to protect the Freedom Riders. 
I'm not exactly sure how Merrick Garland could police the states now:
Its going to take some time to sort things out, but in the meantime ordinary men and women are already taking steps:



In Canada, seems like Canadians aren't impressed with Conservative nuttiness: On a side note, did everyone know that Alexandri Ocasio-Cortez will be old enough to run for President in 2024? Just sayin'....
Last week, I was talking about all the good stories we find on twitter. Here's another great one, because of all the comments from people who rescued abused dogs and cats, and helped them heal. These stories will lift your soul but break your heart: Loved this!
Posted by at
Labels: , , ,

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Got my cat at a shelter. He and his brother were found in a plastic bag in a garbage can. His other siblings were already dead in the same bag.
People's capacity for cruelty never ceases to amaze, with the Dobbs decision being a recent example.

Cap

5:57 am
Cathie from Canada said...

I'm so glad you were able to rescue him.

12:11 pm

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)