UPDATE, MAY 16:
I spoke further on Sunday with BBC Radio Wales about the legal and political situation around the imminent ruling by the US Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade — and the potential effect on millions of American women with the restriction of their right to choose over abortion.
Listen to Discussion from 29:18
Almost overnight this has turned abortion into one of the lead issues, perhaps the lead issue, in the races for the US House and Senate across the country.
And we don’t know which way that goes.
ORIGINAL ENTRY, MAY 6: I joined Monocle 24’s The Globalist on Friday to evaluate options for restoring abortion rights in the US if the Supreme Court confirms a draft opinion overturning the 1973 legal and political benchmark of Roe v. Wade.
Listen from 21:50:
I explain why there is no chance of Roe v. Wade being codified as law by Congress, given President Joe Biden’s reluctance to challenge a Republican filibuster — and, even if he did, the unwillingness of Democrat Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to support the effort.
I focus on the harm to women from the bans and restrictions on abortion — “millions are going to be affected now, not in November” — and on the wider threat posed by the Court’s draft ruling to civil rights, including LGBT and minority communities.
Then I point to the people who can stop this damage: US voters in November’s mid-term elections.
If people really want to protect abortion rights and other rights in the US, the only way they can do it is by turning out in November and voting for the party that protect those rights.
I just can’t tell you that this is the way this will play out.
[Editor’s Note: This comment shows an ignorance of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, and how its legal interpretation has developed since the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision reversed the 1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.]
The 14th amendment cannot be used as a catch-all for “anything goes” including polyamorous and incestuous marriages. The Supreme Court was never set up to legislate. The “right to life” is enshrined in the declaration of independence.
[Editor’s Note: Since the 1950s, the Supreme Court has interpreted the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of personal rights and right to privacy to include a series of “unenumerated rights”, such as civil rights in public spaces and in employment, the right to contraception, and the right to same-sex marriage.
The commenter is advised to learn about this, as well as learning about the scientific and legal discussion on the status of the fetus from contraception through late-term pregnancy.]
Does the 14th amendment allow for the legal recognition of any form of personal relationship?
Is the termination of *another human being* a matter of personal chpice and privacy?
The fact is that abortion and same sex marriage remained illegal after the passing of the 14th amendment. It is liberal revisionism that has reinterpreted in a different way to which it was envisaged. It should be up to individual states to determine if abortion is permitted and the time allowed for it to take place.