【Article/Observer Network Columnist Sun Taiyi】
On June 24, local time, the square in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., was crowded with people, and anti-abortion and pro-abortion groups were simultaneously demonstrating passionately, and the two sides clashed for a while.
When the Supreme Court's decision to overturn the "Rowe v. Wade case" was announced, on the one hand, it was cheering and cheering, and on the other hand, it was liver and intestines. Vice President Harris, who was visiting Chicago at the time, temporarily changed her speech and said that "millions of American women will not be able to have the health care and reproductive health services they still have in the morning while they sleep tonight, and the services they have had with their mothers and grandmothers for 50 years." ”
This is indeed a decision that has a profound impact on American women, social culture, and political games.
U.S. Vice President Harris reprimanded the Supreme Court for overturning the "Rowe v. Wade" video screenshot
Human rights that are no longer protected by the Constitution
Overturning Rowe v. Wade does not mean that the United States will ban abortion altogether, but rather that states can legislate on their own to regulate abortion. Because the perception of abortion rights has become partisan in the United States, it means that the basic human rights of women, "abortion rights", will be very different from those in red and blue states.
As soon as the U.S. Supreme Court's decision was announced, three states that had prepared laws in advance (Kentucky, Louisiana, and South Takota) immediately came into effect banning abortion, even if the pregnancy was due to rape, incest, or a threat to maternal health and safety.
At the time of writing, a total of 9 states have abortion bans in effect, 12 states are likely to ban or restrict abortion to a greater extent in the near future, and the situation in 9 other states is unclear. The combined population of women of childbearing age in these states is almost 37.6 million, and a significant proportion of them will be anxious about the momentary loss of rights.
In the 1973 case of Rowe v. Wade, the grounds for protecting women's abortion rights were "privacy rights". After that, after the Entry into Force of the Hyde Amendment in the 1980s and the Casey case of the 1990s, although the abortion rights of women who did not "unduly afford" before their fertilized eggs could survive outside the body were basically protected, the dispute never stopped.
In recent decades, with the partyization of abortion and the polarization of the two parties, abortion rights have been pushed to the forefront. However, because the right to abortion is attached to the embarrassing position of the "right to privacy", many liberals, including former US Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg (1933-2020), have previously had a lot of opinions about Roe v. Wade. Of course, the latest verdict has directly broken this thin umbrella, and the right to abortion is no longer a human right protected by the US Constitution.
There are already 22 states in the United States that have enacted anti-abortion laws to varying degrees, CNN mapping
Legal Practice and Impact
The full rise of anti-abortion rights forces stems from the political exploitation of the issue during the Reagan era and the formation of a national religious anti-abortion force in the United States. Before the 1980s, many Republicans, including former President George H.W. Bush, were actually supportive of abortion rights, but Reagan and his henchmen saw an opportunity to attract conservative Democrats and centrist voters with the issue of anti-abortion and chose to politicize and popularize it. Then, as evangelical and Catholic forces converged to gain massive support from social conservatives, abortion rights became an important social issue.
Rowe v. Wade does not guarantee a full right to abortion, and what is currently being overturned is not a full right to abortion. Rowe v. Wade divides the pregnancy process into three cycles, and the government may not restrict abortion only to the first cycle, and during the last two cycles, states can still legislate to intervene, especially in the third cycle except in certain circumstances. Subsequently, the Hyde Amendment deprived some women of funding for abortion, while the Casey, while still retaining the right to abortion, squeezed the space to exercise it.
Many states have never stopped trying to interrupt abortion rights legislation, and the legislation that Mississippi used to fight the lawsuit is just one of many attempts that can directly trigger a general shock. Next, conservative-controlled states will continue to push for more relevant legislation.
However, since the Supreme Court did not directly ban abortion, some people may ask, if women in the red state want to have abortions, is it not enough to go to the blue state to have abortions? After all, there are nearly 20 states that will largely continue to protect abortion rights. But in fact, if you look further down the lines of action, you will find that the latest verdict will continue to widen the differences between different groups in the United States, and the most affected will be poor minority women.
As some states ban abortion, many poor women will not be able to enjoy the health rights of individuals from wealthier families because of a lack of transportation or adequate resources. For wealthy women, of course, they can fly a few weeks to provide abortion in a formal medical institution that provides abortion and recuperation; But for poor women, not only may they not have enough savings to fly and pay for surgery, but even a day or two of absenteeism can cut them off from their livelihoods. In addition to class, there is naturally a racial element, because the poverty rates of minorities such as African Americans and Latinos are much higher than average.
The demonstrators held hangers with signs that read, "Don't repeat the mistakes of the past." Pictured from The Associated Press
That's why there are so many people in the march in Washington today holding blood-stained hangers. There have been many women in American history who have no choice but to use hangers as hooks and have abortions on their own. Banning abortions does not necessarily deter abortions, it only makes abortions unsafe, insecure, and more dangerous for more people.
More importantly, the overturning of Rowe v. Wade could have far-reaching implications for some other human rights. The current ruling holds that the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, on which Rowe v. Wade relied, did not recognize abortion as a fundamental right when it was adopted, and therefore the relevant rights are not protected by this amendment. Once this logic is established and there is a precedent, the rights of homosexuals, the rights of interracial couples, and even the right to use contraception may not be protected by U.S. law. This is clear from Thomas's by-laws.
The overthrow of the Roe v. Wade case was only the first wave of shocks before the great earthquake of legal and human rights in the United States.
On June 24, U.S. President Joe Biden said he was "standing with women across the country" and promising to take "all appropriate legal rights" to defend women's reproductive rights.
Impact on the midterm elections
At present, the CAMPAIGN for the MIDTERM elections in the United States is gradually becoming white-hot. Recently, many states have completed party primaries, and some candidates are preparing to launch a final general offensive. Why did the Supreme Court choose this time to "make trouble"? In fact, although we label Supreme Court justices "conservative" and "liberal," they themselves still think they are still non-political, thinking that they are just taking cases and judging cases in a step-by-step manner. Even Trump has said privately that overturning Rowe v. Wade at this time may be bad for the Republican Party.
Trump's judgment is not unreasonable on the face of it. The current Biden administration was facing multiple crises of unfavorable withdrawals from Afghanistan, poor response to the epidemic, severe inflation, and a possible economic recession, and the Democratic Party was disillusioned, believing that there would be a Waterloo this fall. But now the Supreme Court's ruling on abortion rights seems to be able to unite democrats, stimulate fundamentals, and increase action. The democratic base market, which was not highly excited, may have been stimulated by this important issue and decided to vote more. So, that's expected to boost Democratic turnout.
But if we dig deeper, we will find that this may not necessarily be the case. Abortion itself is not a positive sign, even within the Democratic Party base, more people stand against making abortion illegal (the latest CBS and YouGov polls show that the proportion of democrats who oppose abortion is 76%), but these people are not saying that they want to encourage everyone to go to abortion, but do not set too many abortion barriers, do not deprive low-income and minority people of their health rights, and do not deprive women of their right to autonomy in their own bodies. So, this is a more complex and conditional position.
On the Republican side, especially evangelicals, their demand is very simple and clear, that is, they must not let the fertilized egg or fetus that is pregnant be aborted. Overturning Rowe v. Wade is likely to encourage the Republican right to vote, with a clearer and more unified stance. So it's hard to say which party this decision will ultimately favor in the midterm elections.
Claiming to bridge, why continue to tear?
The current conservative-majority Supreme Court has eased restrictions on gun ownership, separation of church and state, and increased restrictions on abortion rights, and the trust of the American people in the Supreme Court has also declined sharply. According to Gallup's latest poll, Americans' trust in the Supreme Court has hit a new low in nearly 50 years. Only 25 percent of U.S. adults say they have "very big" or "quite a lot" trust in the U.S. Supreme Court, down from 36 percent a year ago and 5 percentage points below the previous record set in 2014.
The polarization and social rift in the United States need not be repeated, but when all parties are talking about the need to bridge the gap, why do the actual actions continue to promote the rift? Even the Supreme Court is still involved in the context of "losing the hearts and minds of the people"? At this point, both Democrats and Republicans may have their own logic.
The five justices who supported overturning rowe v. Wade are conservatives, pictured from CNN
Taking abortion rights as an example, the Democratic Party has been in the embarrassing position of placing the "tasteless and discarded" abortion right under the right to privacy. They want to work hard to promote sex education and promote female reproductive freedom, but they have been led by the nose of the "Rowe v. Wade case". In the eyes of some liberals, the overthrow of the "Rowe v. Wade case" also means that this "unbreakable" issue has finally gained a new opportunity, and then we can consider promoting the right to abortion under the "equal protection clause" as part of women's pursuit of eliminating gender discrimination.
And, as mentioned earlier, not only is the U.S. population of women of childbearing age large, but a large percentage of women may have experienced abortion in a broad sense (including the use of abortion pills), so there is a certain mass base for promoting such issues in the eyes of liberals.
In the eyes of the Republican Party, the current situation may be an opportunity to push the United States from "liberal democracy" to "majority democracy". The so-called "liberal democracy" is to protect the basic rights and interests of some people, even if they are in the minority. But republicans feel that it is intolerable for the majority to compromise on rights such as "abortion rights" and "affirmative action" that they see as just for the special and even unworthy rights of a small number of people. In particular, the popularity of the "Great Replacement Theory" in the conservative information space has led many far-right, white supremacists to believe that those minorities are on the verge of becoming the majority, so as to directly squeeze their own living space and replace themselves. In the Buffalo shooting more than a month ago, the killer posted a 180-page document online before committing the attack, which directly mentioned the "Great Replacement Theory" directly.
Therefore, the Republican Party believes that when conservatives in the Supreme Court have an absolute advantage, it is opportune to allow the majority to maintain the interests and advantages of the majority, and the next step should be to speed up the pace and promote more change.
The overthrow of the Roe v. Wade case is only the beginning of a more fierce struggle within the United States, and the smoke of war is far from subsiding.
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