See this video for reference:
My concern has always been why are women being forced to abide by Bronze Age morality? Why are women, and ONLY women, required to follow the doctrine of the Catholic church or whatever church it is that the Duggars attend?
The thing about Roe that the religious don’t seem to grasp is that it didn’t force anyone who didn’t want an abortion or had some religious objection to get one. It’s not my business to know what is going on in your head when it comes to god. Freedom of Religion was absolutely not affected by Roe.
But in the absence of Roe, we really have to explore the very real possibility that women are not covered by the First Amendment.
I’m not an atheist (I know that comes as a shock to my family) but I’m not a Christian either and I don’t let the Bible dictate my life. In fact, I don’t recall “Thou shalt not get an abortion under penalty of death” mentioned anywhere in the Bible. There’s a little bit on various scenarios but there’s no proscription on abortion. And given the number of pregnancies that fail naturally in the first trimester up to viability, my morality says there’s no reason why women can’t exercise their own consciences about this.
This is the flaw in Alito’s argument. If abortion is a matter of morals, then we have to ask whose morals are being given precedent here? I looks like only the religious right is covered. No one else with any other belief system or non-belief system or alternative belief system has been enfranchised by this ruling.
If it’s secular morality, what is it based on? You can’t have an abortion because the state says you can’t? Because why? Because it’s historic? Wasn’t slavery historic? Do we still approve of that?
Anyway, whose history are we talking about here? The United States is made up of a myriad of immigrant groups from all over the world and not everyone has the same moral opinion on abortion. So where is history cut off? And if we’re going back to this Matthew Hale guy for guidance, he wasn’t an American and he seemed to think that killing “witches” was moral. Didn’t we stop doing that centuries ago because our morality changed?
The more I think about Alito’s arguments, the flimsier they seem if for no other reason than women are accorded the right to worship as spelled out in the first amendment. Unless some constitutional scholar wants to tell me why it doesn’t apply to women.
I’m all ears.
******
A little more.
When Amy Coney Barrett was being vetted, we heard LOUD and CLEAR from everyone on the right that we have no right to ask her about her religious beliefs. It would be beyond the pale, an outrage and an affront to every American. Those voices intimidated a lot of people on the left because they take that stuff seriously.
But when Ketanje Brown Jackson was being nominated, there was two faced man with a secret Lindsay Graham badgering her about her religious beliefs, her denomination and whether she had any animus towards Catholics.
And no one on the left called him on it. No one freaked out and demanded Graham sticj to the rules.
And now we have a court that is stacked to the gills with Catholics who will cling to their first amendment rights but will deny them to half the population. This decision ranks right up there with Dred Scott in that it makes women non-citizens who do not have the same freedom of worship that Lindsay Graham would throw a drawl flavored hissy fit about.
The chutzpah is AGGRESSIVE.
Someone check state constitutions on freedom of religion clauses please.
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The Confluence 