The Horror Since The End Of Roe V Wade

"We’re sharing another episode in our WITHpod 2024: The Stakes series, in which we choose specific areas of policy and talk to an expert about Trump and Biden’s records on the topic. This week, we’re discussing the seismic changes to reproductive rights over the past few years and both candidates’ stances. Jessica Valenti is an author and the founder of abortioneveryday.com. She joins WITHpod to discuss Trump creating the conditions for Roe v. Wade to be overturned during Biden’s term and what the overturning of it has meant, the status of abortion laws across states, why she feels hormonal birth control will be taken away from teenagers and more."

Click on the link below for a dystopian view of the future of the USA should Trump/Republicans win in 2024:

The Stakes for Reproductive Rights

Housing Is An Ignored Human Right

"The housing crisis is at a worse point than at any time in recent history. Solutions are available and require political will to bring into reality but because the problem is now so widespread, we may actually be able to take action that would have been untenable before."

Click on the link below for an in-depth look at the basic right that supports all others:

Housing Cannot be a Fundamental Human Right and a Commodity at the Same Time

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) Continues To Be Ignored

"At a time when the world was still reeling from the death and destruction of World War II, the Soviet Union was blockading Berlin, Italy, and France were convulsed with communist-backed labor agitation, Arabs opposed the new state of Israel, communists and nationalists battled in China, and segregationists in the U.S. were forming their own political party to stop the government from protecting civil rights for Black Americans, the member countries of the United Nations nonetheless came together to adopt a landmark document: a common standard of fundamental rights for all human beings."

Click on the link below for the history and importance of UDHR that many countries continue to ignore:

The History and Importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)

What Are Human Rights?

There are many points of view regarding human rights. Who or what grants them? Is it a legal or moral issue? Click on the links below for a representative sample of opinions on such:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/rights-human/

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/human-rights/what-are-human-rights 

https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/human-rights

https://humansrightsworld.com/human-rights/what-are-the-5-basic-human-rights/

Women's Vote In The USA: The History

"Like the momentum for the Fifteenth Amendment, the push for rights for women had taken root during the Civil War as women backed the United States armies with their money, buying bonds and paying taxes; with their loved ones, sending sons and husbands and fathers to the war front; with their labor, working in factories and fields and taking over from men in the nursing and teaching professions; and even with their lives, spying and fighting for the Union. In the aftermath of the war, as the divided nation was rebuilt, many of them expected they would have a say in how it was reconstructed.

"But to their dismay, the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly tied the right to vote to “male” citizens, inserting the word “male” into the Constitution for the first time."

Click on the link below for the history of the steps involved in allowing women to vote in the USA. Unfortunately, it is similar to other rights efforts for women. 

I think frequently about my mother and the history of women's rights in the USA. She was born before women could vote. She graduated 4th in her high school class but could not go to college. She became a widow in 1962 but could not get a credit card in her own name until 1974.

History of the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution

"Human Rights" Vs "States' Rights"

Since at least the onset of the US Civil War, groups of people within individual states have used parts of the US Constitution to support nefarious anti-democratic activity under the banner of "States' Rights." Below are some reasons why states' rights do not trump human rights and why the federal government is the final arbiter in protecting both human rights and democracy:

"The protection of fundamental human rights was a foundation stone in the establishment of the United States over 200 years ago." (link)

"Article VI, Paragraph 2 of the U.S. Constitution is commonly referred to as the Supremacy Clause. It establishes that the federal constitution, and federal law generally, take precedence over state laws, and even state constitutions. It prohibits states from interfering with the federal government's exercise of its constitutional powers, and from assuming any functions that are exclusively entrusted to the federal government. - - - " (link)

Human rights are embedded within the US Constitution and its Amendments. (link)

One has to be willfully ignorant not to see what is happening within both federal and state governments, as well as small and larger groups of organized civilians, to defy human rights by acting outside of laws protecting such. It is not unusual for these folks to cloak their action within the "States' Right" meme. Consistent with this is the phenomenon of the "Constitutional Sheriff." Click on the link below for a podcast delving into the history of sheriffs and this concept of such:

The "Constitutional Sheriff" Myth

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A point to ponder: bodily autonomy is a universal, precedent-supported human right. Why is the US Supreme Court essentially finding that such is a "States' Rights" issue?

Who Owns Our Rights?

The religious claim that a God owns our rights (top-down). Secular opinions on rights essentially hold that they come from the people (bottom-up) in a social contract that fosters maximum human flourishing (link). The US Constitution is a secular document, with a clear separation of government and religion (link). 

Many conservatives claim that there are no rights not explicitly enumerated in the US Constitution, as can be seen in the recent Dobbs abortion ruling: unwritten rights should be recognized only if they were "deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition" and "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty". However, this approach effectively freezes an 18th- or 19th-century understanding of rights in place. The Obergefell case in 2015 not only made marriage equality the law of the land and transformed tradition's role in discerning unwritten rights but that the court rejected the idea that the rights inquiry could be “reduced to any formula.” It instead embraced an approach that “respects our history and learns from it without allowing the past alone to rule the present” (link). Essentially, the Originalistic view of the US Constitution (link) has been debunked.

Click on the link below for a brief video showing clearly that the 9th Amendment to the US Constitution (in the Bill of RIGHTS!) supports the claim that the federal government doesn’t own the rights that are not listed in the Constitution, instead, they belong to the people, thus supporting the precedence leading up to Roe v. Wade:

The Constitution and Marriage

Challenging Anti-abortion Dogma

"Life begins at conception" is the major reason given by the anti-abortion folks to make it illegal. The following links are to sources challenging this unsupported dogma: (1)(2)

If you agree with these challenges but argue for the personhood of the fetus, this link, and this link, challenges that view.

THE BOTTOM LINE: 

• Virtually all opposition to Roe v. Wade is religiously motivated.
• Morality based on religious dogma is unconstitutional under the secular law of the USA.
• Rose v. Wade has strong precedence in US law.
• Morality clearly comes from biology and social interactions, not from religious dogma. It is complex with multiple effects from actions. Objective analysis clearly shows that less harm is done to society under Roe v. Wade.

UPDATES: 

• More on precedent
• No, the Supreme Court is not "neutral" on abortion (or any other human right)

History Of Legal Precedent And Greater Recognition Of Human Rights

The Dred Scott decision by the US Supreme Court is universally recognized as its worst because of its support of slavery. The Civil War and the 13th Amendment officially ended slavery and led to a period of "Reconstruction." However, such was resisted through Jim Crow Laws, which peaked with Plessy v. Ferguson legalizing "separate but equal" in 1896. It wasn't until 1954 that this Supreme Court case was overruled by Brown v. Board of Education. In 1973, the Roe v. Wade decision recognized the right of a woman to choose abortion up to the time of viability.

The only way women and minorities have gained recognition of their inherent rights is through court decisions actualizing the US Constitution and the use of the legal principle of precedent, which directs a court to look to past decisions for guidance on how to decide a case before it. The history of Supreme Court decisions has been a bumpy ride toward greater recognition of human rights. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, it would be another unfortunate case of a recognized human right being no longer so!

Regarding women's rights, it's more than time for the USA to wake up to the fact that the Republicans are attempting to continue a history that has been within the USA since its founding: stripping women of political and economic power.

Forced Marriage

If you think forced marriage is only found in locations that are highly religious outside of the USA, this will educate you. (link, link)

Long Term, Republicans Had Best Be Careful

"Taking rights away is risky political business. People get mad — which means the Republican Party better get ready."

Want to overturn Roe, Republicans? Get ready for what comes next.

(The Blue Diamond Gallery)

Pastry As Speech Is An Unprecedented Legal Claim

"In prior decisions, Colorado held that bakers could refuse to write anti-gay messages on cakes. In the case now before the Supreme Court, baker Jack Phillips refused even to discuss making a cake for a same-sex couple. Phillips did not object to writing particular words – he flatly objected to selling any cake for the occasion."

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article190063034.html#storylink=cpy

A great deal has been written about this case, however, this article looks specifically at the actions of the cake baker:

Pastry as speech? Where does it end?
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HB2 Protests: What Should Be The Real Point

"If you listen to state leaders who oppose HB2, you would never know that the legislation was crafted as an assault on the civil rights of LGBTQ people. The discussion today is all about the economic losses inflicted by sports leagues and corporations that have boycotted the state. Like the campaign against Amendment One in 2012, opponents of HB2 have de-gayed the discussion. Why? Because North Carolina politicians and consultants are scared of the words lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer. They are scared that social conservatives might be uncomfortable hearing too much about a third rail issue such as the basic civil rights of gay and transgender people. So they pander. The opposition to HB2 from leaders in the state is as disingenuous as it gets."

HB2 hurts economically, but that’s not the point

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/article104863941.html#storylink=cpy