Claytoonz: Goodbye to women's rights
The citizens of this nation are about to lose a constitutional right.
In a leaked initial draft obtained by Politico last night, Justice Samuel Alito wrote, “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled.” This is a preliminary private vote that can change, but won’t. Chief Justice John Roberts, who is comfortable with extreme restrictions on a woman’s right to choose but not with banning it entirely, is voting with the minority to uphold abortion.
For Politico, Josh Gerstein and Alexander Ward write, “The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – that largely maintained the right.”
Alito writes in the document labeled the “Opinion of the Court,” “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
Mitch McConnell denied President Obama his third Supreme Court nominee a confirmation vote and even refused hearings. In his place, we got Trump’s Neil Gorsuch who is voting to destroy women’s rights to make health decisions regarding their own bodies. McConnell justified this seat steal by claiming there shouldn’t be a confirmation during an election year and the people should get to have a say in the pick…which they already had by electing Obama three years previously and the four years before that.
Then, Justice Anthony Kennedy retired in a deal with Donald Trump that smells fishy to high hell. His replacement was the beer-loving crying Brett Kavanaugh, a man accused of sexual assault. A man who didn’t seem mentally or emotionally up to the task of being a Supreme Court justice. Now he’s assaulting women again. If you’re female and you feel something clenching your uterus, that’s Brett. Would Justice Kennedy have retired if Donald Trump wasn’t president (sic)?
Then, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died less than two months before the 2020 election, and remembering his argument that there shouldn’t be SCOTUS confirmations during an election, Mitch McConnell threw his former position out the window and rushed the confirmation of Trump goon Amy Coney Barrett through before the election. His argument this time was that the Senate was elected by the people, and since Republicans were the majority that this was what the people wanted. The people gave the Democrats the majority two months later. Mitch McConnell doesn’t care if the entire world can see him cheating and for the lying hypocrite he is. He truly doesn’t care as long as he gets what he wants.
Donald Trump didn’t win the popular vote. Hell, George W. Bush didn’t win the popular vote for his first term. The Supreme Court, with justices appointed by his daddy, made George W. Bush president. Despite the Senate being controlled by Republicans during the Trump administration (sic), the majority of this nation’s voters voted for Democratic Senate candidates. Add that to the fact Donald Trump would not be president if NOT for the meddling and interference of Vladimir Putin. This is a fact. So what we have here is a constitutional right being taken away by a court put in place by the white Christian minority voters of this nation. This is not what the people wanted. This is not the direction the people want this nation to go in.
The decision argues that “abortion” is not mentioned in the Constitution. Guess what else isn’t. Birth Control, mixed marriage, and gay marriage. So what right will this ultra-right court full of religious extremists destroy next?
This decision is not final. It’s a draft that’s in the editing stage…or maybe still in the writing stage. Some votes during this stage can change but I don’t see Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito, Barrett, or Clarence Thomas changing their vote not to destroy Roe V. Wade. This will probably be final and official in July.
What this means is that about 20 yee-haw states will ban abortion entirely, even in the case of rape, incest, and danger to the life of the woman carrying the fetus. Eleven states have laws that will automatically ban abortion as soon as the decision comes down. More fucknut states will follow suit as fast as they can pass bills and get them on governors’ desks. Don’t be surprised if there are a few special legislative sessions called for the sole purpose of banning abortion. But, this ruling makes abortion a state issue and it will still be legal in states where people don’t drag their knuckles and use eating utensils.
Some of these yee-haw states have made it illegal to leave the state to get an abortion. The Supreme Court has not ruled on one state making something illegal in another state…or have they allowed that? In the past, southern states made it a crime to leave and marry another person in another state. Returning home brought the possibility of jail time. This is what we’re returning to.
As you may recall, Republicans are always arguing about state rights. Yeah, like with everything else they say, that’s bullshit because as soon as the GOP takes back Congress, they’re going to do all they can to ban abortion for the entire nation. They’ll probably kill the filibuster in the Senate to ban abortion.
And what about a state like Virginia which voted heavily for President Biden but then got stupid over racist dog-whistles and elected a Republican who promised he had no interest in enacting Texas-style abortion laws? Expect that to be bullshit too as Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has a Republican General Assembly, and as we’ve noted, all Republicans are liars. Virginia’s Republicans will ban abortion. And you thought you were just voting against Critical Race Theory being taught to your kids. Here’s the worst part: Critical Race Theory was NEVER being taught to your kids. You fell for that shit and now you’re losing a constitutional right.
What this means is that you need to vote. Vote. Vote. Vote, motherfuckers, vote. I don’t care what state the economy is in or what gaffe President Biden said today or if you’re hearing the word “woke” a lot. Vote Democrat. If you don’t, you’re letting the troglodytes take over this country without even fighting for it.
Welcome to backward America where dogmatic religious zealots create laws dictating how you live your life. We’re going to give the Taliban a run for their money.
Clay Jones is the 2022 recipient of the RFK Human Rights Journalism Award in Editorial Cartooning, and won a 2021 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Excellence in Journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists. He was a finalist for the Herblock Prize in 2019 and a finalist for the National Headliner Award in 2020. See more award-winning editorial cartoons from him at Claytoonz.com.