I’ve never been a fan of abortion. I realize that no one is actually a ‘fan’ of abortion, but you know what I mean. Anyway, back in my more conservative days, I called for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
My reason for opposing abortion was not related to religious reasons, even though I was raised Roman Catholic. I was adopted, and because of this, I felt like if abortion had been legal in the late 1960s, I might not be here today. This is why, even as a conservative, I supported marriage equality so more married couples who couldn’t have their own kids would adopt.
In the run-up to the 2016 election, I started becoming more progressive. Not just because there was no way in hell I was going to vote for the tangerine tinged sex pest, but because of the influence of two people in my life, my wonderful partner Lady Gray, and my boss. (Also because of the rampant gun violence in our country, but that’s not germane to the story.)
Lady Gray, is a lifelong Democrat and has been in the social working field for most of her adult life. So, she’s provided me a great deal of insight into the lives of families who are faced with difficult decisions like this to make.
On the other hand, my boss probably doesn’t know how much of an influence he’s been on me as well. Part of my day job is to help my boss craft blog posts for the corporate blog. One night, he sends me an email. He asks me to start working on a blog post in support of Roe v. Wade. I thought this would be a challenge for me since I didn’t actually support Roe v. Wade, but I’m not going to tell the boss no. I like to get paid, but I also didn’t want to be a hypocrite.
It was in my research for that blog post that I found something out I didn’t know before. Roe v. Wade protected abortion under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. The 14th Amendment contains the Equal Protection Clause. Under the Equal Protection Clause, the Supreme Court ruled in 1973 that women have a fundamental “right to privacy” that protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose whether or not to have an abortion.
If Roe v. Wade is to be overturned, it could start a precedent for other cases protected under the Equal Protection Clause to be overturned. For example, Brown v. Board of Education, the ruling that led to the ending of segregation in schools in our country, could end up being overturned. If most conservatives of today had their way, Brown v. Board would probably be on the chopping block as well.
While these two landmark court cases may not affect you, how long would it be before the Supreme Court overturned a decision that did?
Conservatives love to tout that the Constitution is a sacred document; however, they tend to pick and choose which parts of it they hold sacred. While they’ll continually encourage and advocate the Second Amendment as if it were handed down by God, they’ll try to circumvent others in order to erode the rights of marginalized people who they view as enemies.
The Trench Reynolds Report 