I went back to read what it was they based their opinion on to overturn Roe v Wade which of course led me to Justice Alito’s opinion. This article points out Alito’s confusing arguments from the Court which allows states the right to regulate, legislate abortion. We all know that American conservatives have always wanted the states to be the ultimate arbiter in how citizens are treated by the government. This goes back to the 19th century and their insistence they had the right to own human beings and treat them any way they pleased. In many ways you could make the point that a state having control over a woman’s reproductive choices is another from of enslavement but I digress.
What struck me the most about what the article was pointing out in Alito’s grounds for opposing Roe v Wade at the federal level was this
………. states are entitled to regulate abortion to eliminate “gruesome and barbaric” medical procedures; to “preserve the integrity of the medical profession”; and to prevent discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or disability, including barring abortion in cases of fetal abnormality.
Two examples popped out immediately when I read that. The integrity of the medical profession has been all but destroyed in the state of Florida where
a health care provider or health payor has the right to opt out of participation in or payment for any health care service on the basis of a conscience-based objection
Florida has gone on to say such providers do not have to refer people they deny care to to some other providers, they cannot be held liable for turning away patients and they can themselves sue if someone tries to hold them accountable for abandoning the Hippocratic oath. In other words this single American state can decide the life or death of any resident based on the whim of the physician who is the first point of contact of that resident in need of medical care. Should you be wearing a religiously and constitutionally protected symbol of your faith and you encounter a doctor who holds your religion antiethical to their own beliefs, Florida says you can be denied life saving care and you have no recourse whatsoever. How is that preseving the integrity of the medical profession that Alito says was essential in his opinion? In reality it isn’t but it does reinforce the Right’s insistence that citizens are propety of the state which can define what rights they are willing to give or deny you.
The second inconsistency of Alito’s removal of a federal standard for abortion and giving it to the states, “to prevent discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or disability” is particularly laughable given the latest ruling on 303 Creative. In this case, Gorsuch steps up to the plate to make a distinction between discrimination based on a person’s status–her gender, race, and other classifications–and discrimination based on her message. The Court ruled that Lorie Smith, a Colorado web designer who is opposed to same sex marriage was able to deny service to citizens because she asserted the State was unconstitutionally enlisting her in creating a message she opposes. We all know by now her case was built on a hypothetical, the Court was able to form an opinion on a distinction without a difference or that’s how it appears to my non legal eyes. What the opinion does seem to do is allow businesses the right to refuse service to Americans based on anything other than illegal, seditious behavior.
The conservative spectrum of American thought seems intent on using the courts and state legislatures to abrogate the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as it has been defined over several centuries of American jurisprudence. The SCOTUS has unilaterally disregarded the hard fought for tenets of modern day rulings in almost unapologetically funny ways. For instance, saying that abortions are no longer necessary and can be discarded because of the easy accecss to contraception while state legislatures increasingly deny availability to contraception for women. Unfortunately very few on the Right see the contradiction of their arguments which members of the SCOTUS seem to relish in providing to the public. The only comfort we can take in is that they are in recess and for now we are spared any more of their confounding rulings
Miscellany101's Weblog 