Sunday, October 2, 2022

Seven Steps That Ended Roe v. Wade Abortions Rights 1973 - 2022

 

 “Dobbs” in this blog, will refer to the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court case.

 

What was to become Dobbs, emerged from Trump's mind during the 2016 Republican Party Presidential Debates and Forums. Yes, he wanted to win the nomination; and he noticed that when he made comments against abortion his ratings went up. 

 

For conservative Republicans, an implied or explicit anti-abortion campaign strategy often works well—regardless of what the politician really believes. (Of course, Democrats have their own version of this when they support reproductive rights.)

 

Narrative Display In Veterans Memorial Flag Park

    

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

 

Beginning my research, I noticed something odd. The Mississippi abortion law was designed, intended to be, unconstitutional. It prohibited abortion after 14 weeks. But Roe prohibited abortion after 24 weeks. According to the New York Times, the law was enacted in 2018 “[By] the Republican-dominated Mississippi Legislature but never went into effect because of an immediate legal challenge that led to a federal appellate court blocking its enforcement” as found in:  https://www.nytimes.com/article/mississippi-abortion-law.html   

 

 

The Mississippi AG said she was seeking to overturn the Supreme Court precedent. So the Mississippi anti-abortion law sounds like it was a setup. I recall at the time hearing several political analyst opinions to the effect that this new law, because of the way it was written, could result in overturning Roe v. Wade. 

 

 

When I decided to write about Dobbs and the end of Roe v. Wade, I was unprepared for the variety of strong negative feelings arising within me. I thought I could be emotionally detached; but I had to repeatedly, consciously, redirect my mind to focus just on the constitutional story and the controversial strands of logic. 

 

 

My goal in writing is certainly not emotional drama. My goal is to educate readers on how our government works—whether well or poorly—on even horrendously difficult and disturbing issues. Therefore, it's best to try to minimize negative emotions. Instead, focus as if you are trying to follow a series of steps which lead to a result. Carefully visualize those steps in your mind, and then you can say, “Oh, so those are the steps taken on the path to the Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS’s) overturning Roe v. Wade.

 

 

Whether you are pro or con about reproductive rights, it’s best not to get emotional about SCOTUS. Look at SCOTUS as governmental machinery in which nine justices push a button yea or nay to reach a majority decision. 

 


Chief Justice John Roberts is a very experienced, moderate and considerate judge. I have watched him over many years and believe he is a great chief Justice.


 

During his Senate confirmation hearings, he said something very important: “Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules.” Can be found at:    

https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/chief-justice-roberts-statement-nomination-process



In reading SCOTUS opinions, it’s easy to pick sides on a topic and get hostile toward the justices one disagrees with. That is not helpful. What IS HELPFUL is storing in your heart a determination to motivate yourself and others to vote for THE President who will put in THE liberal or conservative kind of judge you would like there. The one and only way you can influence the Supreme Court is by voting for the presidential candidate who promises the kind of SCOTUS judge you want.  


  

 

 

READ AND LEARN KEY CONCEPTS

 

You already are familiar with the word “concept,” but I use it in a formal sense. A “concept”  it is a complex idea, having multiple parts which work together for some designed purpose. It’s not just one single idea, or thing, or feeling.  An example of a governmental concept is balance of power among the three branches of government. 

 

 

There is an important concept of originalism: “In the context of United States law, originalism is a concept regarding the interpretation of the Constitution that asserts that all statements in the constitution must be interpreted based on the original understanding "at the time it was adopted" (as found in Wikipedia). 

 

 

In the Dobbs decision-making, several of the conservative judges based their logic on an originalistic approach to understanding what the Constitution’s words and sentences mean. Contrasting to originalism is the perspective that the Constitution is a “living” document which changes both from amendments and the gradually evolving legislated laws forming the U.S. Government. 

 

 

Conservative Supreme Court justices have tended to use originalism as a justification for denying various rights to the people.

 

 

Here are three online, understandable articles which will help you understand how Dobbs came about. They are well written, thoughtful, and I don’t think they are partisan. In these articles there are well-explained concepts worth studying. The more you understand the concepts, the more meaningful and powerful will be your voting.

 

CATO: https://www.cato.org/blog/hard-problem-abortion-rights

New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/article/mississippi-abortion-law.html

 

Political scientist Morgan Marietta, University of Massachusetts, Lowell: https://theconversation.com/a-revolutionary-ruling-and-not-just-for-abortion-a-supreme-court-scholar-explains-the-impact-of-dobbs-185823

 

From the Harvard Crimson by Isabella B. Cho and Brandon L. Kingdollar, Crimson Staff Writers: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/6/25/dobbs-experts-reax/

  

 

Keep in mind three concepts:

  • First, as I’ve stated in past blogs, the basis, the foundation for understanding the actions of 95% of people is: Everyone is trying to get more of what they want and less of what they don’t want. All the time. Their behavior is always a means of getting to some goal or end point in the future. And, when we look at a person’s behavior over time, we can figure out their goals. People who talk a lot will always betray their motives--if we listen.
  • Second, people’s usual thoughts, feelings, values, and behaviors vary a lot. This leads to vast differences of opinions, conflicts, and changing allegiances to personalities of politicians. 
  • Third, people are “driven” or motivated by powerful and deep feelings about: sex, marriage, children, privacy, birth control, abortion, reproductive freedom, and freedom from State and Federal government intrusions. Laws at the State and Federal Levels regulate what people can do or must not do.

 

Politics is very important, serious, messy, awful to cope with. It is worth learning about. The Greek’s had the first democracy. The famous leader Pericles said,

 

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. ” 


  

 

 

STEPS TAKEN ON THE PATH TO OVERTURNING ROE v. WADE

 

(1) Roe v. Wade came in 1973 and allowed abortion. It was a divisive SCOTUS ruling from the beginning. Some groups of people celebrate it and some despise it. Some of you may have heard of the partial birth abortion method; but that procedure was banned in 2003; and, in 2007 the constitutionality of that ban was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Gonzales v. Carhart.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial-Birth_Abortion_Ban_Act

 

 

(2) In the early 1970’s various religious groups took official stands against Roe v. Wade and abortion. Many churches respected the separation of church and State (defined in the very first Constitutional Amendment in 1791). 

 

But, in the mid-1970s, a small group of evangelical Christians devised an agenda to increase their political power in support of conservative politics. Although no one was forcing these evangelicals to support liberal or diversity values, they eventually tried to take on the role of being victims of diversity AND LGBTQ rights.  They grew their influence over decades. By the time of the Trump Administration:

  • “For guidance, [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions turned to leading experts at the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the powerhouse Christian right legal advocacy organization that had battled for years to ban same-sex marriage and abortion, elevate expanded religious rights for conservative Christians, and erase the separation of church and state. The ADF was omnipresent in every one of these fights in court, and in the court of public opinion.” This is from the book Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered The Trump Presidency, And the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind (Posner, 2021).

 

(3)  Republican Mitch McConnell, was the most powerful man in the Senate at the end of the Obama Administration in 2016; and he  contrived to prevent Obama from filling a vacancy in the Supreme Court. That allowed the incoming Trump to appoint another very conservative justice. Ultimately Trump would appoint three justices. And they did not disappoint Trump and the Republican Party. Trump's three ultra conservative republican Justices, were the reason Roe v. Wade was overturned.

  

 

(4)  The highly experienced Representative John Boehner said that, “The biggest impact any president can have . . . is who’s on the [Supreme] court” (Califano, Jr., 2018).

 

 

Former president Trump, during his one term, put three new justices on the Supreme Court. They are republican, conservative, and their names are: Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett. These are lifetime appointments. Their personal and professional values and biases will influence the Supreme Court for years to come. 

 

 

(5) Historically, constitutional scholars say that the will of the people has influenced the decisions of the Supreme Court. It is one of many inputs influencing how the judges vote. The Pew Research Center is a highly respected source on public opinion.  Public opinion on abortion fluctuates up and down from year to year. But, from 1995 forward to the present, the American public has supported having abortion legal in all or most cases. More specifically:

  

 

(6) On June 24, 2022 the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opinion OVERTURNED Roe v. Wade.  The SCOTUS  opinion finds that the regulation of abortion is a matter for the individual States; that it is for State legislatures to make abortion law; and that the Supreme Court by its opinion “[R]eturns that authority to the people and their elected representatives” (as found on page eight of the Dobbs Syllabus).

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf


 

(7) The well-regarded Constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe reacted very negatively to the Dobbs opinion. He made several points:

 
The Supreme Court reversed Roe because of the three additional conservative judges put there by Trump. 

States will likely unleash conflicting laws with provisions as in Texas which put citizens in the position to punish those who would seek out abortions.

The flavor of Tribe's article seems to say that the SCOTUS ruling was wrong, harsh, unfeeling, and will be disruptive.




  

FINAL COMMENTS

 

I still find a lot to like about our Supreme Court and believe overall it has performed well for our country. By earnestly studying the Court, a citizen can see that its methods make sense. It’s usually efficient and wise. 

 

 

But occasionally the Court must fix some of its mistakes. In this blog we have proceeded through the steps that led to the Court's repealing Roe and Casey.

 

 

I don’t believe an issue as big as reproductive rights can be simply right or wrong. But I strongly believe average Americans have been poorly served by our government and the big money influencers. 

 

Now and in the future we will most likely have to live with the States controlling abortion regulations. But the inevitable major differences in state-level abortion laws will lead to conflicts—conflicts which can only be resolved by the Supreme Court stepping in. Historically, when railroads, commerce, or people seeking abortions are crossing state lines and confront conflicting state laws, these are problems SCOTUS was designed to handle.   

 

I hope all citizens work out their well-informed opinions on abortion, discuss them with others, and VOTE IN ALL AVAILABLE ELECTIONS. 

 

 

 For references, see the relevant page on the powertomyvotes.com website.

 

 

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Thursday, September 15, 2022

Constitutional Scholar Criticizes SCOTUS For Overturning Dobbs

 

 



Lawrence Tribe is a professor at Harvard Law School. For years he has been one of the most highly regarded constitutional authorities.

He wrote an article, Deconstructing Dobbs, in which he severely criticizes the recent Supreme Court's (SCOTUS) repeal of abortion rights in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case.
The New York Review published Tribe’s article online for their 9-22-2022 magazine issue. It's clearly written and easy to understand. 
 
 
Find it here: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2022/09/22/deconstructing-dobbs-laurence-tribe/ 
 

As I've mentioned in previous blogs, I have been doing a lot of background reading about SCOTUS, including the Dobbs majority opinion and the multiple dissents. I fully agree with Laurence Tribe's opinions in Deconstructing Dobbs.
 
 
I also agree with what Joseph A. Califano, Jr. wrote in his book Our Damaged Democracy (Califano, 2018) about the politically polarized Supreme Court:
  • "To paraphrase the Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, the struggle for control of the Supreme Court, and often the work of the court itself, has become the continuation of political war by other means."
     
     
From the many books I've been reading about SCOTUS, it is very clear that the Republican former presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump used their "dog whistles" to tell their base voters that they would fill the Supreme Court with the very most conservative justices in order get a 5 to 4 majority repealing Roe v. Wade.  
 
These SCOTUS Justices were the majority that overturned Roe v. Wade: Associate Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
 
 
        WORKS CITED
 
        For references, see the relevant page on the powertomyvotes.com website.
 
              
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Sunday, September 11, 2022

Vote, Based On Objective Facts--Not Just On Favorite Personal Opinions

 

President Biden beat Trump in the 2020 in presidential election in which there was no fraud. And an election recount, requested and supervised by Republicans, found about 200 more votes for Biden and no fraud.

As of June 1, 2022:
 
90% of registered democrat voters Agree that Biden was legitimately elected.
 
Only 25% of republican registered voters Agree that Biden was legitimately elected.

 
 
 
INTRODUCTION
 
OBJECTIVE FACTS and PERSONAL OPINIONS are very different things. Good thinking skills require that we understand the differences. Then we can better know what’s real and what’s not. And then we have an adequate basis for making decisions and taking effective action—whether in daily life or in voting.
 
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan earned great respect in the U.S. Congress during his 24 years of service. He made an often quoted comment: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” 
 
Paul Krugman, Nobel prize winner, political blogger, and author of the book, Arguing With Zombies, followed up that Moynihan quote by writing about our polarized America and our relative ineffectiveness in government.
 
Krugman wrote that in America “[A] lot of people do believe they’re entitled to their own facts” (Krugman, 2021). According to Krugman, pundits and politically inspired “experts” are making up their own numbers to sell false ideas even about serious economic issues! 
 
I’ve already blogged about the lying and cheating which routinely occurs in politics. So today I’m just going to teach something very basic but crucially important: the differences between objective facts and personal opinions.
  • BY THE WAY. . . Is it legal in America to vote for a candidate who mostly lies and grossly distorts actual realities? Absolutely legal. But when a politician confidently says he is telling the truth, how do you know he’s not lying?
As voters we cannot afford to be naïve [Naïve means: uninformed, easily lied to and robbed of our common sense.]

 
 
WE CAN IMPROVE OUR THINKING SKILLS AND VOTING BY . . .
 
1. Learning the definition of objective facts and how they differ from personal opinions.
 
2. Knowing what you want the Federal government to do for you as a citizen. These are our “issues” that we want government to help us with. Examples of issues are: jobs with higher pay, women’s freedom of reproductive choice, keeping Medicare and Social Security, or even ending Medicare and Social Security as some conservatives propose. 
 
3. Learning lots more about how government works. Anything you learned about government in high school is now out of date, and it was too elementary to begin with. 
 
4. On important issues in our personal lives we will make the best decisions by seeking positive and negative personal opinions on such things as: what car to buy, what stores to shop in and what products to use. We might read Consumer Reports magazine and read their objective facts about products they tested in their labs. 
 
 
Read here about what is an OBJECTIVE FACT
It is an event or a thing that really exists or happened, not just in the mind. It is out there in the world. It is separate and independent from the mind.
 
For example: You are checking out at a store and the clerk tells you your 50-dollar bill tests out as counterfeit as shown by the red color from the testing pen he swiped on it. You and the clerk saw it happen. It wasn’t just the clerk’s opinion; you also saw the test result color on the money. 
 
Or another example: An ultrasound showing the sex of a 20 week old baby in the womb, is an objective fact. It’s not a mother “feeling it’s a boy.” It’s not a parent of three boys saying he/she believes, “This one’s going to be a girl.” But it is a physical photograph which when viewed stimulates many strong feelings in the brain.
 
Test results are good and objective evidence. We could even get our own copy of the results! 
 
State and Federal courts seek the objective facts. If there are no objective facts to prove guilt, the case gets dismissed. Objectivity is highly important and any false testimony is a big deal--the false witness can get into serious trouble.

Google and Facebook prohibit users from posting dangerous falsehoods that promote violence. Politicians promoting violence with falsehoods, get kicked off. Trump’s so called “Truth Social” is no longer available on Google Play.

Read here about how to separate PERSONAL OPINION from objective fact.
 
We all have personal opinions about what we like or don’t like. Or, about what we experienced or believe. Nothing wrong with this. Our feelings and opinions exist in our mind. They might even exist in a diary or journal; so they exist as history of what was in our mind. But just because something is written in history, does not mean it’s an objective fact. It could be a piece of propaganda, for example. 
 
Here’s an example of a boy’s personal opinion that he brushed his teeth, but really didn’t:
 
A eleven year old boy replies to his mother’s question, “Did you brush your teeth?” with, “Yes Mom I did!” The boy gave his subjective opinion, which he felt right in doing because he doesn’t like brushing his teeth and doesn’t accept that hygiene is all that important.
  • He didn’t brush his teeth and tried to get away with it.
     
  • Mom will want to confirm the truth of her son’s statement. Truthfulness training is ultimately highly important in child rearing. So she tells him to breathe out so she can smell his breath and then checks to see if his toothbrush is wet. Busted! This mom is thorough and she discourages lying by regularly checking her child’s honesty. Eventually she’ll be able to trust him. He will learn that lying doesn’t get him anywhere good.
In our daily lives, much of what we say and claim to have done is out of sight. So, lying and getting away with something is an easy option for people to give in to. But they won’t feel comfortable when the get found out. 
 
Those whose minds are contaminated with conspiracy theories still feel they have the truth. Unfortunately, their feeling that feels so right is only in their mind--but it's not anything in objective reality. Feelings are not objective facts, such as who won or lost an election. An election is an observable fact, independent of what a person feels about it. It is a fact that Biden lives in the Whitehouse. 
 
It is objective fact that dozens and dozens of courts have dismissed Trump's election lawsuits. 
 
My opinion is that 95% of republican congressmen and women always knew Biden won and Trump lost. But they selfishly would never admit the truth because Trump's Big Lie served their self interest. Republican voters were deceived by their very own representatives! The Republican Party has been deceiving their loyal voters for the last eight months. 
 
Trump's own Attorney General, Bill Barr, called Trump's election fraud claims "Bullshit." And Mitch McConnell, the most powerful republican senator, publicly and simply stated Biden won and would be the next president. Barr and McConnell are both conservative Republicans!


CONCLUSION
 
Psychologists have been studying thinking skills and thinking failures for many decades. The research shows that most adults believe they are good thinkers--but usually they aren’t. People believe they can be logical but when their skills are tested they mostly operate on feeling and vague impressions. The research shows that when average people are given more information to help them make a good logical decision, they actually make more logical errors (Bennett, 2004). 
 
From the simple examples above, it may seem that separating objective facts from personal opinions is pretty obvious. But the abstract concept is what’s important. To use the concept one must stop, think about what they’re seeing, hearing or reading; compare multiple versions; and draw conclusions. Lawyers and police get trained in this but not most people. One must be on guard for falsehoods and confusions; must mentally penetrate the incoming facts and opinions; and do some interrogating to discover the objective facts. That’s more work than fun; but once we have this skill we will find it precious indeed-- because we are less vulnerable to someone trying to cheat us. 
 
Wise mothers are routinely lovingly skeptical of what their kids say. They ask the right questions and check for evidence!
 
In American politics today, there is plenty of good information on the internet by which to know the objective facts of situations. But in today's internet world the actual facts are obscured by thousands of "alternative facts," outright lies, and distortions from self-interest.
 

        WORKS CITED

            For references, see the relevant page on the powertomyvotes.com website.

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