If You Think This is Just About Abortion, Think Again
- radicalblackhistor
- Jun 30, 2022
- 3 min read
On Cornell law school's website there is a definition of substantive due process: "Substantive due process is the principle that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments protect fundamental rights from government interference. Specifically, the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the government from depriving any person of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” The Fifth Amendment applies to federal action, and the Fourteenth applies to state action." So what does this have to do with Roe v Wade? Everything!!!
According to Laurie Daniel Favors, an attorney and head of the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College and host of the Lurie Daniel Favors Show on @SiriusXM, this is the underlying logic abandoned by the conservative Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn this ruling. In short, if a right is not explicitly delineated in the constitution do you have this right? For example, the right to privacy is not explicitly stated, but in some legal scholars' estimation it undergirds other rights. Can you have the right to use contraceptives, marry who you want or get the medical treatment you want without government intrusion? In other words, is a right to privacy required for you to have these rights and does the constitution even give them to you? One case, Griswold v Connecticut involved the right of a married couple to use contraceptives. The decision affirmed that this couple had the right to privacy as a married couple. This was expanded in more recent rulings to include LGBTQIA+ issues, like same sex marriage. Which is why, I believe Justice Clarence Thompson brought up same sex marriage and contraceptives in his opinion.
Therefore, whether you are pro-choice or pro-life in regard to abortion, are you willing to give up privacy and allow for the government to control your decisions. Perhaps, you feel that this will not affect you. I'm not black or a minority, so I have nothing to fear, some may say. Yes, they will come for us first, but that doesn't mean you will be spared. When people stand up for the right, they are persecuted, irrespective of their demographics.Well, I'll just go along to get along and not make any waves, you may say, then I'll be safe. Not when the judgment comes. There will be no escape. This country is on the precipice of fracture with the fault lines expanding every minute. Racism expands, hatred grows, intolerance is worn with pride and love is a distant stranger rarely seen like an ephemeral presence barely detectable.
Can the wounds heal? Yes and no.Yes, because a few people will be willing to do the hard work of speaking truth, listening and working to rectify the wrong.But, we live in an age of mendacity, where the Zeitgeist of alternative facts is spun as a spider's web and everyone is trapped in the silken strands. Or perhaps, as Michelle Wolf said, burning facts to create the perfect smoky eye. Just today I learned on Roland Martin Unfiltered's Daily Digital Show that the Texas School board is considering changing the name slavery to involuntary relocation, so the children don't feel bad. Idiocy on display. Jesus said the truth will set you free, but they seem to believe lies will. Many are willing to reduce life to abortion and truth to a political issue, without any regard to the complex intersections of how people of faith or no faith can live out a moral ethic based on deeply held beliefs.The "Never has Been" United States of America may be fracturing, but the last hope is for men and women to work to create a society that respects the humanity of all not just in principle, but in reality and where justice is the rule for all not just the exception. Clearly, those who believe "No Humans Involved", as echoed by Sylvia Winter will always oppose a civil society, but are there enough people who will call a spade a spade? Its decision time.White Nationalist are fighting to Amerikkka and perhaps they will win. Others are fighting for a just society, perhaps they will win. These visions are incompatible, compromise is not possible. We can't sugar coat it, a horse apple beautifully painted gold, is still shit.
Comments