As an American and a grandfather, I’m deeply concerned about the possibility that when my granddaughter is an adult, the right to control her own body will be so impeded by state and federal statutes that the exercise of that right will have moved from difficult to impossible.
I began watching the struggle for abortion rights years before Roe v. Wade. I witnessed Hawaii becoming the first of several states decriminalizing abortion leading up to Roe v. Wade. I saw how Casey v. Planned Parenthood enabled countless impediments to the exercise of a right Roe attempted to affirm with some ill-defined and ultimately ephemeral right to privacy.
I remember Reed v. Reed, when the Court unanimously overturned the Idaho Probate Code that specified that "males must be preferred to females" in appointing administrators of estates. This was the first time the Supreme Court applied the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause to women's rights.
And I thought, “Why not use the 14th amendment’s equal protection clause for affirming abortion rights?” From what I gathered, this is how Ruth Bader Ginsburg might have tried to affirm abortion rights, especially because of her role in Reed v. Reed. I even remember when Ms. Magazine published that horrific police photo of Gerri Santoro. (I suspect that everyone who saw that photo will never forget it.)
But that’s water under the bridge now. And now the court is packed with justices who are about to overturn Roe, reducing my own granddaughter to breeding stock.
I always tried to be the sort of voter who takes a candidate’s position on all the issues into account. But after decades of serious consideration, I've arrived at the position that no matter where a candidate stands on all other issues, if he or she opposes abortion rights he or she will not get my vote.
I admit this with considerable reluctance. For me and many others single issue voting is an anathema.
However, a woman's right to deal with her pregnancy in whatever way she chooses is as fundamental, as profound as any human right.
If a politician will wage war on the sovereignty each of us has over his or her body, whether through legislation or through a synod masquerading as the United States Supreme Court, that politician is willing to stomp on the free exercise of any right. With such men and women in office, no rights are safe.