On the eve of July 4th, the battle rages for Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. Political action committees (PACs) are flooding the airwaves with ads conveying either support or opposition to Trump’s potential nominee, which will be announced on Monday.
Make no mistake, nothing less than the future of the Republic is at stake. With Justice Anthony Kennedy’s impending retirement, there will be four liberal and four conservative justices on the Court. If Trump’s conservative nominee is confirmed, the court will have a 5-4 conservative majority that will have the power to set social, political and economic policy for decades to come.
Civil rights? They could disappear, or more likely protection of civil rights will be severely weakened. Just today Trump announced that he wants race-blind admission to colleges and universities, effectively ending decades of affirmative action that vaulted a segment of people of color squarely into the previously unreachable middle and upper-middle classes.
LGBTQ rights? They may fall by the wayside if the new conservative court has its way. Indeed, a whole host of civil and political rights may be eliminated. It’s fair to say the very notion of progress is at stake.
But the one that scares me the most, that really strikes fear deep down in my bones, is the threat to a woman’s right to choose. For 45 years, since Roe vs. Wade in 1973, a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body, and whether or not to have a baby, has been enshrined in law and protected by the Supreme Court.
Now that right is under threat, and it’s absolutely terrifying. I was born in 1974, so all I’ve ever known is a world where women in America had access to safe, affordable, legal abortions should they so choose.
However, that right has been steadily eroded by some states, particularly conservative states in the South and West. Today we have a situation where the entire state of Mississippi has only one abortion clinic, which is supposed to serve the entire 1.5 million women living in the state.
That’s crazy, just completely insane, and I can only imagine how hard it is for women in that state to maintain control over their own bodies and exercise agency for whether they want to bring a life into this world or not. Because if they don’t want to, the state is making it pretty damn hard for them to get an abortion. Which is wrong, unfair, patriarchal, misogynistic, and downright unjust and hateful.
If Trump has his way, the plight of pregnant women in Mississippi could become the plight of all women in America. Are we really going to go back to the days of back-alley abortions? With shady “doctors” and coat hangers and sky-high maternal mortality every time a woman makes a choice about her own body?
Because that’s what America was like before Roe vs. Wade, and it’s a world no sane person who has any empathy whatsoever should ever want to return to.
So I, like many people, am scared about the future of this country, and where we’ve been heading since Trump’s election. Now comes the Supreme Court pick to institutionalize all the anger, hatred and fear that Trump has engendered in his supporters.
What’s going to happen? I for one have no idea. The Senate has a republican majority, and if there are no defections they can easily confirm Trump’s nominee with a straight vote down party lines.
The Democrats have vowed to fight tooth and nail against any Trump selection, and they’re also focusing on two republican senators who they believe they can flip to their side, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. But no one knows if they’ll be successful.
The battle is in full swing, and no less than the future of our democracy as an inclusive, progressive, welcoming, supportive and free state is at stake.
So as we head to our barbeques tomorrow for the 4th of July to celebrate the independence of this great nation, let’s also remember that seismic events are occurring. Let’s remember to make our voices heard, to fight, and to let Trump know that we reject his hate and his fear-mongering.
Because if we don’t stand up now, when will we ever stand up? The time is now, and the battleground is the Supreme Court.
RESIST.
