"The United States of America" is a misnomer.
I posit that the United States has been divided over one issue or another since its founding. Slavery, racism, availability of birth control, interracial marriage, unequal treatment of women, homelessness, LGBTQ rights, COVID-19 policies, and the widening income gaps are among the many fault lines crossing this nation's landscape. One of the deepest, widest fissures is abortion.
In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in Roe v. Wade that the U.S. Constitution protects a pregnant woman's freedom to end her pregnancy without excessive government intervention.
Yesterday (May 2, 2022), Politico published a draft of the proposed Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision. The case addresses the constitutionality of a 2018 Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks. Associate Justice Samuel Alito drafted the majority opinion stating that Roe must be overruled. Four other associate justices -- Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett -- sided with Alito. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan are dissenting. It's unknown how Chief Justice John Roberts will vote.
"The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe ... now chiefly rely -- the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment," Alito wrote.
The leak of the 98-page draft decision was a first. Chief Justice Roberts vowed to investigate the source of the leak. What I find interesting is the timing of the leak -- before the midterm primary elections.
Should the draft decision become official, abortion law will be left to the states. Thirteen states have "trigger laws" in place that would ban abortions immediately. Twenty-three in all could outlaw the practice. The United States would become a hodgepodge of areas allowing or prohibiting abortion.
My stance on the issue is that, had I become pregnant, whether in or out of wedlock, I would have had the child because I believe the child is a life. But that's my belief. It is not my place to force my belief on anyone, especially on a woman of childbearing age making the agonizing decision whether to give birth.
For people who want to unite this nation, I fear that horse has left the barn. With discord over COVID-19 mask and vaccine policies, race relations, LGBTQ rights, and abortion, I'm afraid I will see this country implode during my lifetime.
