The mess that the overturn of Roe has caused will last decades. I'm reading opinions that states that ban abortion might sue New York and California for luring thier women to commit "criminal acts" (which we good people call accessing medicine). How can a nation function if medicine in one state is "homicide" in another (Louisiana)?
Texas is going to assemble a challenge to Plyer v. Doe (1982) which could end the requirement for states to provide free education to all children regardless of nationality in grades 1-12, effectively closing all public schools in some states.
States will challenge Loving, Griswold and Obergefell. And soon states will pass laws banning all sex reassignment medicine and procedures.
And then there's the misoprostol pills, the next abortion front. Will states try to ban medications? Will they try to create their own DEA-like agencies? Will they sue drug makers to stop making pills they want to ban? Will they sue the US Postal Service, UPS, FedEx and DHL for allowing banned medications to be sent into their state from outside states or overseas?
What other drugs will more than 20 states want to ban? Hormones? HIV treatments? How about vaccines?
This wouldn't happen, but what would stop this Roberts court from allowing a state to ban alcohol sales? It's a fair analogy because the Court just let states ban a major category of medical care. This isn't a mild difference in laws so some states allow gambling, fireworks and open alcohol containers. This is an extreme legal divide in which legitimate medicine obtained in New York is categorized as a felony by one or more states.
The civil suits will be endless. Lawyers are about to get decades of guaranteed extra cases that shouldn't exist in a functioning nation. We're a failed state. Any one of us could be entangled in a criminal or civil case involving us directly or indirectly. Plus, we're all going to fund our state's lawsuits and defenses. This nation is finished. Will 0.5% of our GDP be simply interstate civil suits clogging up our courts and our lives?
For the average American, the overturn of Roe should be a bigger story than Russia's invasion of Ukraine or even the investigation into Trump’s failed coup in late 2020 and early 2021. And given that Democrats would rather talk about fighting Russia in a proxy war than the looming loss of freedoms at home, it's quite telling how absolutely screwed we all are.
In fact, I think the overturn of Roe is the biggest development in the US since our invasion of Iraq. Easily, I think. One could even argue that the Dobbs decision is the most consequential bad Supreme Court decision since Ferguson (1896).
Red states are assembling agencies to spy on their citizens and to keep tabs on abortion providers in other states. Red states are putting together wish lists of what types of medicine they want to see banned. What's coming is horrifying. And no matter where you live, in any of our 50 states and 5 colonies, your life is going to become more difficult thanks to the overturn of Roe.
My argument is not an easy one to make, I admit. And I can't diminish other major US events in this century. We’ve had two stolen presidential elections (if we count George W. Bush’s 2001 inauguration as a completion of a steal that occurred at the end of the year 2000), a ruling that corporations have rights like people, and a US president who chose a violent transfer of power over a peaceful one. But one could make the case that the overturn of Roe and the failed Trump coup are directly linked. The tyranny of GOP minority rule is evident in both. The attempt to keep Trump in power failed, but the full assault of the 14th Amendment is now on. We're about to live in a nation in which legitimate medicine administered in one state is a felony homicide in another. A nation with that kind of split simply cannot stand. We're a failed state.
The GOP signaled, way back in 1994, that they were going to govern by dismantling our society and removing all liberties and protections for the poor. They were going to inflict pain and suffering for the sake of it. Reagan started it, but didn't say it out loud. Newt said it out loud. By the time we got to Ted Cruz and Trump, they weren't just saying it out loud, but they were using macho and violent marketing to motivate their voters to vote for the destruction of the US.
The GOP project to overturn Roe has been mainly a patient, focused 29 year project, starting with Bush 41’s appointment of Clarence Thomas to the Court in 1991, over objections that he was under-qualified and a serial abuser of power in the workplace. Then his son, Bush 43, appointed John Roberts in 2005 and Samuel Alito in 2006. It is notable that Alito’s confirmation vote was the closest and most controversial since Thomas. The late, great Robert Byrd was one of only two Democrat's to vote in favor of Alito, who went on to be the most bitter and mean spirited Justice in Supreme Court history. Then Donald Trump traded a solid right-wing justice, the late Anton Scalia, with three Justices selected by the Heritage Foundation. The Supreme Court transitioned from a 5-4 center-left majority in 1990 (White, Marshall, Blackmun, Stevens, Kennedy) to a 6-3 right wing supermajority (Thomas, Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett) by 2020. This took incredible effort, hundreds of millions of dollars, and some good fortune as both Bush 43 and Trump failed to win the popular vote in their first presidential elections.
When a minority party is aggressively attacking the majority, and taking their rights away, the majority needs to aggressively to fight back. And in my book, some violence is now justified.
I'm not saying that I am going to conspire to kill Republicans. But if say, an armed left-wing mob stormed the Texas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, or Nebraska State House and killed every Republican lawmaker they could find, that would be justified at this point, because a small number of Republicans are threatening the lives of millions.
Too violent? Okay, how about long occupations of those statehouses, so legislative business could not be conducted? How about a national strike in which every labor union walked out for 14 days? The damage to the economy would be swift. Hit the old men in charge where it hurts - the markets and the GDP.
In my view, only a violent revolution can save the USA. And since that is not coming, I am casually preparing to flee the USA later in life. I don't want to die in an authoritarian or autocratic regime.
Uncle Tim contributed to this post.