Editorial: Court's decision a subtraction from our rights
By The Herald Editorial Board
There is no getting past the realization that — for the first time in American history — the U.S. Supreme Court has subtracted from the existing rights of citizens, rather than strengthened them.
Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, didn’t merely find for the state of Mississippi and uphold its ban on most abortions after 15 weeks; instead a five-member majority — emboldened for the first time by the addition of three conservative justices nominated by President Donald Trump — used that dominance to utterly strike down nearly 50 years of precedent granted by the court’s decision in Roe v. Wade.
The decision, because it returns the issue to states and a patchwork of laws, means abortion will remain available for those with the finances and ability to travel to other states, including Washington state, where abortion remains legal. But for many others, access to abortion — and related health care — will be far more limited than it is today, with that access restricted; with the miles necessary to travel increasing as “trigger laws” become effective in more states.
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As it it did a day before in its decision regarding firearms regulation, the Supreme Court’s majority relies on a cherry-picked history that allows it to defend its decision as high-minded “originalism,” purportedly heeding only the original text of the Constitution and the “history and traditions” of the laws of long-past eras. But Alito, in his opinion, according to numerous legal scholars, ignores the hands-off approach that laws and public opinion took regarding abortion prior to that of 19th-century lawmakers who sought to use prohibitions against abortion as a way to lock women into there roles in the home and keep them out of politics and business.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/editorial-courts-decision-a-subtraction-from-our-rights/
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