History affects how Supreme Court addresses abortion today

 | cutline • press clip • news of the day |

Cryptopolytech Public Press Pass

Title: History affects how Supreme Court addresses abortion today

Originally reported on www.dispatch.com by The Columbus Dispatch

200000048 – World Newser
•| World |•| Online |•| Media |•| Outlet |•| News |•| World |

Dale Butland was press secretary and Ohio chief of staff to the late Sen. John Glenn.

According to a leaked Supreme Court majority opinion, American women are about to lose the right to decide whether and when to begin a family; a constitutional protection they’ve had for nearly 50 years.   

How is this possible? What’s changed since Roe v. Wade was initially decided? 

Not an increase in abortions; in fact, they’ve now fallen to less than half of what they were in the early 1980s.

More:Ohio abortions drop to historic low, and both sides point to legislative restrictions

Not public opinion, which has remained remarkably consistent. Indeed, in a Pew survey released earlier this month, 61% said abortion should be legal in all or most cases.  

What’s changed is the makeup of the Supreme Court, which now has six justices broadly hostile to abortion rights.

But isn’t the court supposed to follow precedent and the principle of stare decisis, which holds that settled law should remain in place absent a compelling reason to overturn it? Perhaps even more important in the minds of regular citizens, what about democracy?

 Doesn’t killing Roe fly in the face of majority rule?

Yes and yes. 

But the reason Roe appears destined to fall anyway lies in America’s ancient past — and more specifically, in the 200-year-old compromises that were necessary to persuade Southern slave states to ratify the Constitution and join the union.  

Contrary to conventional wisdom, neither the Electoral College nor the two-senators-per-state artifacts resulted from a split between big states and small states.   

In the late 1700s and early 1800s, the split was between North and South. 

And because Southern states had far more slaves than slave owners, they feared being perpetually outvoted at a time when only white men who owned property could cast ballots.     

Enter three major compromises: (a) counting slaves as three-fifths of a person, (b) giving every state an equal number of Senate seats regardless of population, and (c) choosing presidents through an “Electoral College” rather than by popular vote.   

Together, these anti-democratic compromises are a large part of why today’s Supreme Court can ignore public opinion and strip half the population of a constitutional right they’ve relied upon for nearly half a century.   

Of the five justices likely to overturn Roe, four were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote — but won the office via the Electoral College.    

And they were confirmed by an unrepresentative Senate in which the 44 million Americans who live in California get two senators, while the 1.6 million people who live in the Dakotas get four.   

And because highly conservative minorities are now in the driver’s seat, returning the issue of abortion to the states promises to unleash a tsunami of extremism.

More:If Roe v. Wade is overturned, Republican lawmakers want to ban abortion in Ohio

Find more, like the above, right here on Cryptopolytech.com by following any of our extensive menus or clicking on the category tags appearing on or near the images. We compile great content FOR YOU in an unbiased manner to promote the growth of knowledge by sharing the ‘news of the day’ on various topics. The above article originally appeared on www.dispatch.com. We hope you enjoyed History affects how Supreme Court addresses abortion today.