WHY ABORTION IS JUST THE BEGINNING
REAL NEWS. SPICY CAPTIONS.
THE SUPREME COURT IS FULL OUT BUGGING—AND IT DOESN’T END WITH ABORTION.
No! You didn’t elect them, but the majority of the Supremes just put birth control, gay marriage and the privacy of your bedroom at-risk.
Here’s what you need to know, and click that button to stay ready.
JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS:
“FOR THAT REASON, IN FUTURE CASES, WE SHOULD RECONSIDER ALL OF THIS COURT’S SUBSTANTIVE DUE PROCESS PRECEDENTS, INCLUDING GRISWOLD, LAWRENCE, AND OBERGEFELL.”
LAST TIME ON AMERICA: THE FINALE...
For nearly 50 years, the 1973 case known as Roe v. Wade has protected the right to abortion—but after today—not so much!
According to CNBC, about half of the states are expected to completely ban or “severely restrict abortion as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision on a Mississippi case known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.”
ME LOOKING AT AMERICA
Before Friday, the right to “due process” and “equal protection under the laws” were the rights that made the right to abortion—and birth control, and gay marriage, and protected LGBTQ+ couples from prosecution for sex—legal.
However you feel about any of these issues that have nothing to do with nobody else but the people involved, and surely ain’t nobody’s business in the first place, in the middle of a whole formula shortage 🙄 and a global health pandemic where the US is still in first-place in confirmed deaths, in a country that has the highest mortality rate in childbirth, one of the highest rates of child poverty, and can’t be bothered to make paid parental leave, affordable childcare, or living wages possible, but has time to hate poor parents, track my period better than me, fight against universal health care, can almost guarantee you more mass shootings than days in the year, let alone all other forms of gun violence—and yet!—apparently has time to stand guard in my bathroom stall, then crawl itself all up in and around my fallopian tubes that they can’t even find because consistent, comprehensive, even medically accurate sex education standards don’t exist?!!!!
MAKE IT MAKE SENSE
👏🏿
MAKE IT MAKE SENSE 👏🏿
Yeah, so, in short, this court ruling is trash, and we’re going to need you for the long haul.
But first, I’m gonna lie down while you keep reading about due process and how religious liberty and freedom from slavery helped make abortion (and birth control and gay marriage) possible.
WHY EVERYBODY'S TALKING ABOUT DUE PROCESS
INVESTOPEDIA may have the most straightforward definition of due process:
Due process is a requirement that legal matters be resolved according to established rules and principles, and that individuals be treated fairly. Due process applies to both civil and criminal matters.
MERRIAM-WEBSTER notes that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution guarantee the right to due process.
PURITANS + THE END OF SLAVERY = PRIVACY LAW (SORTA)
If history is still legal where you are or whatnot, with SEA-RAWR-TEE and all 🙄, there’s a (narrowing!) possibility you remember what Reconstruction even is or how Amendments to the Constitution work.
If not, don’t worry: I come bearing memes! ▸▸▸
Also, here are a few actual sources about the 13th Amendment (which ✌🏾ended✌🏾 slavery); 14th Amendment (which guaranteed citizenship and equal protection of the laws); and the 15th Amendment (which guaranteed the right to vote…kind of).
It feels like I should also include the big, fat asterisk on all these Amendments, summed up all too well by Frederick Douglass, speaking on the “achievement” of the laws of Reconstruction:
In law free, in fact slave; in law a citizen, in fact an alien; in law a voter, in fact disenfranchised…It [government] imposes upon him all the burdens of citizenship and withholds from him all its benefits.
— Frederick Douglass
Let’s start with the original ‘due process’ Amendment and work our way up.
The 5th Amendment was designed to “protect the rights of the criminally accused and to secure life, liberty, and property.”
“Some were coerced or tortured into confessing religious affiliation and were considered guilty if they remained silent.” In short, the Fifth Amendment was meant to protect the wrongfully accused, and your right to plead the ‘FIF.’
The Fourteenth Amendment was added in 1868 following the United States Civil War. It was part of a trio of new amendments to the Constitution that applied to Black Americans who were formerly enslaved. It expanded protections of all rights for citizens at the state level.
This would have been particularly important for the newly freed who were still vulnerable to racist laws at the state level. 🗑🤡🗑
The 14th Amendment “granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States.”
It also forbid states from denying any person "life, liberty or property, without due process of law" or to "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
HOW DUE PROCESS & “MIND YOUR BUSINESS” LAWS GOT US ABORTION—AND MORE
SPOILER ALERT: The Constitution does not actually say “the government has the right to mind its [redacted] business.”
No. The Constitution does not, in fact, tell government to mind its business.
However! The 5th and 14th Amendments—thanks to due process—mean everybody is entitled to ✌🏾privacy✌🏾 as suggested by the ✨spirit✨ of several Amendments. Gotta love those spirits…
They include the:
First Amendment 👉🏾 free speech
(my religious beliefs are none of your business)Third Amendment 👉🏾 prohibition on the forced quartering of troops
(what goes on in my home is none of your business, therefore your lil’ troops can’t invite themselves up in here)
Fourth Amendment 👉🏾 freedom from searches and seizures
(you don’t get to touch my stuff, because it’s none of your business)Fifth Amendment 👉🏾 freedom from self-incrimination
(I don’t have to tell you my business, because it’s none of your business)Ninth Amendment 👉🏾 other rights
(my miscellaneous business is none of your business)
In short—and very, very, very, very, very technically speaking—in order to actually enforce these rights, protect these rights, or even claim these rights even are rights, we’d also have to come to the conclusion that a “zone of privacy” exists. In other words…
“THE GOVERNMENT HAS THE RIGHT TO MIND ITS [REDACTED] BUSINESS.”
Then, the 14th Amendment comes in with the assist, by declaring:
“EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER THE LAWS”
That is, “equal protection under” all those laws we just mentioned that imply you have a right to privacy. That interpretation of the Constitution is the interpretation that protected the right to abortion—until Friday.
HOW WE KNOW BIRTH CONTROL, SEX & MARRIAGE ARE NEXT
Justice Clarence Thomas—that would be this man—wrote in his concurrence that Friday’s decision should encourage the Supreme Court to take a second look at several cases that also depend on this interpretation of the Constitution, and depend on a right to privacy.
Those cases include:
THE BIRTH CONTROL CASE
In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Supreme Court ruled in a 7-2 decision that the Constitution protects people’s right to privacy. Because of that right, states could not impose restrictions on birth control.
If the Court decides to revisit this case as Justice Thomas is suggesting, states would be allowed to outlaw various forms of birth control.
THE ALL-UP-IN-LGBTQ-COUPLES’-BEDROOM CASE
In Lawrence v. Texas (2003), the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 decision that it is a violation of due process to make intimate relations between same sex partners a crime.
If the Supremes decides to revisit this case, it could once again allow the Court to police queer folks’ beds.
THE ‘GAY MARRIAGE’ CASE
In Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the Supreme Court ruled that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment “protects the rights of same-sex couples to get married in the same ways that opposite-sex couples can.”
But these nuptials may not exist for much longer if this Court gets its way!
HERE'S WHAT WE DO NEXT (BESIDES 'VOTE')
The Supreme Court is not a body of folks you can vote for, but this particular Court has the unique distinction of being the only one in U.S. history to seat Justices that were appointed by a President that the people didn’t elect.
Yeah.
Read that again.
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We’re fully prepared to use all our collective WTF-isms to make moves. 💅🏿
We’re coming to a city near you with the blueprint to clap back!