The Longest War

America’s longest War was not the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, World War ii, Korea, Vietnam or even the endless war in Afghanistan.

America’s longest war began in 1973. There were two opposing sides: Pro-Choice – those who favored abortion rights and a woman’s right to choose and Pro-Life – those opposed to abortion. The war became formalized with the Supreme Court’s passage of Roe v. Wade which legalized abortion – a law which continues to this day…and with it, the war.

This year, the Supreme Court has already heard arguments supporting a Mississippi law which would limit a legal abortion up to fifteen weeks of a pregnancy. If the Court approves, the Mississippi law will end the civil rights concept of Roe v. Wade.

The Supreme Court has already permitted a Texas law which limits an abortion to six weeks of a pregnancy and permits any citizen to arrest anyone assisting a woman seeking an abortion – even a relative or a taxi driver bringing her to a doctor. The Court has not ruled on the legality of the Texas law but it has allowed it to stand at this time by permitting those who perform abortions to sue those who attempt to stop a woman seeking an abortion.

Only six countries in the World ban abortion completely and one of them is Vatican City.

But no country in the World has turned Pro-Choice vs Pro-Life into a war that has lasted 50 years.

We look at several factors here – the makeup of the Court, the reality that Roe v. Wade will soon no longer exist and the essential reason for the war itself.

THE SUPREME COURT DIVIDE

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor may not be a Ruthie Ginsburg but in her comments about the Supreme Court’s recent hearing on a new Mississippi law seeking to alter the established parameters of Roe v. Wade, she certainly sounded like the great RBG.

In commenting on the proceedings led by the views of the three Justices appointed by Donald J. Trump specifically to overthrow Roe V. Wade, Justice Sotomayor and her two liberal colleagues indicated a great concern for overthrowing the Roe v. Wade precedent so soon after a change in the makeup of the Court, suggesting it could cause an existential threat to the Court.

Justice Sotomayor asked “Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?

“If people believe that this is all political, how will we survive?”

Her language says it all…the “stench… of a political decision” threatens the very survival of the Court as we have known it throughout our history.

Since these early hearings clearly indicate that the specific choices of Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett were based on the understanding that they would vote to end Roe v. Wade, we have heard talk of increasing the number of Justices – the age-old ‘packing” of the Court- and suggestions that the lifetime appointments be reduced to a very limited time of service so that the Court reflects the cultural and political times rather than the idea that every Court reflects a reading of the Constitution.

The political battles these attempted changes would cause, leads us to seriously doubt that any change is possible, but it does give the pundits of cable television and university professors publishing in our daily papers, a great chance to sound off.

We are equally convinced that a decision supporting either the Mississippi law or eventually, the Texas law, would set off a new firestorm from Pro Choice advocates that would continue as a foundational cause of a very divided country.

What is evident to date is that the Court is moving in the direction of permitting each State to form its own law governing when abortion is viable and when it is not.

In fact. 20 States already have an assortment of “dates” by which abortion is legal.

This act by the Supreme Court could not only make abortions illegal and so end the civil rights earned by women in Roe v. Wade but it would also remove the Courts – all Courts – from the process. It would in a sense permit each State Legislature to make whatever rules people in that State will accept short of ending abortion completely.

Chief Justice John Roberts, unable to act as a deciding moderating vote in the manner of Sandra Day O’Conner and Arthur Kennedy, seems to be determined to have the Court avoid formerly ending the rights won in the 50 year old Roe v. Wade decision, but it remains to be seen if he can manage that attempt.

A decision by the Court on the Mississippi law is not expected until June.

THE FIGHT

The Pro Choice vs Pro Life debate seems clear and unambiguous.

On one side, women want the clear right to have their viability and autonomy recognized so that no one can deny them the right to either have a child or not no matter what the circumstances.

On the other, tens of millions of Americans believe that no one has the right to end the life of an unborn no matter what issues may be involved…although rape and incest are often mentioned as conditions which should allow abortion.

Most ultra-orthodox religions recognize the value and life of the Mother over an unborn child when there is a specific health emergency which makes such a choice necessary…a matter of life and death.

But the fight against abortion has been led by the religious right wing of Christianity in this country which believes in the viability of the unborn no matter what condition exists and their insistent ferocity in that belief has kept America’s longest war alive all these years.

The Liberal Party of New York is the only political party in America to file a legal brief supporting the principles of Roe v. Wade and nothing has changed in our belief that the cause and the right of women to make that choice without government interference must be supported.

And yet there are issues which especially intrigue us 50 years later.

If one studies the record, we learn that the average sentence for a Mother or Father murdering a child is rarely more that 8 to twenty years; not life in prison and certainly not a death sentence. There is no other country in the World where such a result exists.

The reality of child molestation has always been greater than the attention paid to it. Rarely is there a criminal penalty for the offending parent…rather children are sent into the foster care system which itself needs far more public attention than it gets…where it seems there is a price on each child’s head.

If we look at child poverty, we see millions of children living in that diminished life…and know full well that tens of millions of children go to sleep hungry every night.

If we study the results of healthcare numbers and education standings, we find the United States trailing all other industrial countries like ours but even countries like Latvia in both critical areas of childcare.

America spends almost one-third of its Gross Domestic Product on its children… not because we do it best for we clearly do not, but because the cost of caring for children in America is among the highest in the World.

THE HIDDEN AGENDA

So if these truths exist about the state of children and their care, why is there a 50 year effort in the worship of the unborn?

And for a significant answer to that question we turn again to Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

When the Supreme Court voted to take no action on Texas Law SB8 which limited abortion to six weeks, Justice Sotomayor dissenting said this:

“This is a brazen challenge to our federal structure. It echoes the philosophy of John C. Calhoun, a virulent defender of the slaveholding South, who insisted that States had the right to ‘veto’ or ‘nullify’ any federal law with which is disagreed”.

Calhoun, often called the ‘father of secession’ though he died eleven years before the Civil War, was known as a raging racist who genuinely believed that the “Black race of Central Africa were saved by being sold into slavery for delivery to colonial America…from the dawn of the World to the present day, they have attained a level of civilization so improved not only physically but morally and intellectually.” He said slavery was not an evil but a good.

Behind his thoughts about slavery was the desire to permit States to do as they pleased with whatever federal law they disliked.

But the war over abortion in our time goes deeper in this divided country.

Those against abortion seem to go beyond the ‘religious right’ to include millions who do not like specific federal laws and seem ready to go to war against them.

These forces appear to be a multitude of white people who sincerely believe that people of color do not abort children but that white people do. To them this reality means there will be more people of color in America and a declining white America.

Justice Sotomayor might have had these thoughts about race when she specifically included the words and beliefs of Calhoun.

We lived and worked in Louisiana and Texas and saw the reality of this thinking. Many in the stands watching high school football games (which have a major status in the culture of both States) and have seen any number of very young students of color very pregnant and very included in family life. It is a cultural attitude and essentially goes unnoticed by the total population.

So perhaps racism in America, which has by now become a caste system, can be a very valid reason for the endless war over abortion…going far deeper into the American psyche than anyone has discussed.

The Supreme Court will clearly change the status of Roe v. Wade no matter how it may try to soften the blow. It remains to be seen whether the war continues or whether the essential meaning of Roe v. Wade can continue in other forms.