I am deeply puzzled. Many liberal women took to the streets in the Women’s March the day after President Trump was inaugurated. I wondered then, what logical reason they had for protesting a President before he had even governed one day, much less made any policy changes. They were marching, they said, for women’s rights. They continue to protest that President Trump is endangering, even destroying their rights as women.
I am a woman. What rights have I lost since Donald J. Trump became president? Have I lost the right to hold down a job? Have I lost the right to drive a car? Have I lost the right to leave my house without a male family member to escort me? Have I lost the right to vote in local, state and federal elections? Have I lost the right to make decisions for my children if I am a single mom, or to make joint decisions with my husband if I am married? Have I lost the right to wear the skimpiest of clothing in public including bikinis that leave little to the imagination?
Have I lost the right to own property? To control my own money? Have I lost the right to drink alcohol? To have sex with whomever I choose whenever I choose, even if my choices are not always wise? Have I lost the right to take birth control pills or to use other forms of birth control? Have I lost the right not to be sexually harassed at work? Have I lost the right not to be beaten or killed by a male relative because I have somehow damaged the honor of my family? Have I lost the right to be treated equally before the law? Have I lost the right to have an abortion upon demand, subject to the limits of my state’s laws?
The answer to all of these questions is a resounding “no!” Millions of women around the world, especially those in Muslim countries have few if any of the rights I listed above, but American women have all of them, and not one of those rights has been lost under this administration, nor are they likely to be.
The rallying cry of the far left, of course, and the real reason behind The Women’s March is that the appointment of strict Constitutionalists to the Supreme Court will be the death of Roe v. Wade and thus the death of legal abortion. They feared it when Neil Gorsuch became a Supreme Court Justice in April of 2017, and they fear it even more now that the president has picked another nominee to be confirmed. Millions will die in back alley illegal abortions, the left cries! But this is not true. Let’s examine the reasons.
First of all, it is difficult for liberals to remember that the job of the Supreme Court is not to make law, but to determine the constitutionality of laws and of rulings by lower courts. They do not understand this, because their Supreme Court Justices have been making laws for decades.
Strict Constitutionalists, like the conservatives currently on the Court and like Brett Kavanaugh, will not make law. Thus, the day that Kavanaugh, who is likely to be confirmed, takes his oath, the Supreme Court is not going to have a show of hands to declare Roe v. Wade unconstitutional. And that is even though many constitutional scholars have agreed over the years that Roe v. Wade is a poor, and probably unconstitutional decision, based upon far less knowledge than we have now about when a baby’s heart begins to beat, thus making it a living human being.
Thus, In order for Roe v. Wade to even be considered by the Supreme Court, a suit must be brought by someone challenging its constitutionality. Then, if the Supreme Court should determine that the Constitution does not specifically guarantee a woman’s right to abortion upon demand or that the inalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” extends also to an unborn baby with a beating heart within a mother’s womb, then Federal sanction of abortions would go away. But abortions would not! And that is what liberals don’t want people to realize.
Then, in the absence of a federal protection of abortions, the decision to allow or not to allow abortions would revert to the states, where it should have been to begin with. Each state would then place restrictions upon abortion determined by the voters of their state. In deep blue states like California and New York, no change would be likely. In other states, restrictions might be placed on when abortions would be allowed or in what cases, for instance in the case of incest, rape, or danger to the life of the mother. But these would be choices made by the voters in each state, not a decision forced upon them by seven judges in Washington D.C.
Another couple of facts that are not recognized by those going crazy about losing Roe v. Wade are that first, Norma McCorvy, the “Roe” in the case, was heavily influenced into bringing suit. She never ended up having an abortion, and in fact, became so strenuously anti-abortion that she later tried to have the ruling overturned. Secondly, according to Politifact, 90% of all women who see the ultrasound of their baby in the womb elect not to go through with an abortion.
Planned Parenthood opposes doing ultrasounds. According to Dr. L Lacroix of Planned Parenthood, “Abortion is a hard enough thing for any woman to decide without the torture of seeing the baby on an ultrasound screen.” Hmm. Here is a right that women who go to Planned Parenthood do NOT have: The right to an informed decision about their pregnancy. They can not see, through an ultrasound, exactly what they are destroying if they carry through with the abortion. Why? Because abortions are big business for Planned Parenthood and the last thing they want is to lose 90% of their business because women are seeing their live babies and deciding for themselves not to end those lives.
That is a right that I, as a woman, feel all women should have. But it is not a right that the supporters of Planned Parenthood and the women who screech about a woman’s “reproductive rights” recognize as a right for women.
If they really cared about women’s rights, there would be a Women’s March to support the right of women to make an informed choice!