On May 9, The Hill reports, the US Senate passed — with unanimous consent! — a bill to “formally allow the Supreme Court of the United States Police to provide around-the-clock protection to [the justices’] family members, in line with the security some executive and congressional officials get.”

While sponsor John Cornyn (R-TX) justified the action on alleged “threats to the physical safety of Supreme Court Justices and their families,” the real reason for the bill is no secret. In the wake of a leaked draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, ordinary Americans started showing up to protest outside the justices’ homes, cuing immediate howls about the sanctity of their “privacy.”

Wait, what?

Even if one considers the interests of unborn children more important than privacy, there’s no question that privacy would be a casualty of the ruling. It would allow state legislatures to ignore privacy in at least two areas — women’s uteri and doctor-patient relationships.

If those areas of privacy are less important than the sanctity of life in the eyes of abortion opponents, how is the privacy of Supreme Court justices and their families more important than, as the First Amendment puts it, “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances?”

The Constitution itself doesn’t answer that question. To find what we need, we must instead turn to George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm and the modified version of its utopian scheme’s Seventh Commandment:

“All animals are equal — but some animals are more equal than others.”

Your right to protest the actions of Very Special Important People like Supreme Court justices is subordinate to their right to not be annoyed, embarrassed, or in even the slightest manner inconvenienced by such protests.

If you thought you were reading a column about abortion, you thought wrong.

For that matter, if you thought you were reading a column about privacy, you thought wrong.

You’re reading a column about equality under the law. This little teacup tempest is just the latest in a long list of demonstrations that no such thing exists.

Since the 1980s, America’s Very Special Important People (aka the political class) have availed themselves of a fiction referred to as “free speech zones.” They go where they please and say what they wish — but mere mortals like you are restricted to saying what you wish in locations far removed from them.

Some states have even passed laws forbidding disclosure of the addresses of Very Special Important People — politicians, judges, police officers — to the mere serfs who fork over those Very Special Important People’s salaries, for the privilege of doing as those Very Special Important People demand.

They get to run your life down to the smallest detail, barge into that life at will, and cage or kill you if you resist.

You get to complain about it — for now, anyway, so long as you do so only in places where they won’t notice and pronounce themselves offended by your gall and temerity.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

In the wake of a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion which, if it represents a final vote, would overturn Roe v. Wade, pro-choice advocates are marshaling their best — and worst — arguments against removing that ruling’s protections for abortion.

As always, I’ll refrain from sharing my own opinions on abortion as such. I’m not interested in convincing anyone of anything there, if for no other reason than that I’m not firmly convinced myself.

I won’t refrain from sharing my opinions on poor arguments, though. Both in general and on abortion specifically, they’re quite possibly my top pet peeve.  And the worst argument I’m hearing right now is … the envelope, please …

Overturning Roe would be “undemocratic.”

“Overturning Roe v. Wade Shows the Right Has Nothing but Contempt for Democracy,” Ben Beckett writes at Jacobin. “If the decision stands, it will be a high-water mark for the Right’s project of undemocratic rule …. As the draft decision shows, the Supreme Court is arguably the most powerful weapon the Right has for ruling without and against the people.”

Really? The problem isn’t a matter of fundamental individual rights versus state power, but rather of “democracy?”

Let’s take a look at the three underlying cases:

In Roe v. Wade (1973) the Supreme Court overturned Articles 1191-1194 and 1196 of Texas’s Penal Code. Those articles and that code were passed by a democratically elected state legislature. The Court overturned “democracy” in favor of what it held was a constitutionally protected individual right.

In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Court further expanded its interpretation of those constitutional protections versus Pennsylvania’s Abortion Control Act of 1982, once again ruling against a democratically elected state legislature and in favor of a right to abortion.

In the current case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Association, the Court will rule either for or against Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act —  which, you guessed it, was duly passed by a democratically elected state legislature.

If the draft opinion becomes an actual ruling,  democratically elected state legislatures will once again make decisions on abortion law.

That’s the exact opposite of “undemocratic.” It’s full-blown democracy, tip-toeing through the abortion tulips with bells on and playing a ukulele.

Those who claim a constitutional right to abortion might want to reconsider their fetishistic (and in this case, simply incorrect) appeals to “democracy.” There’s something to be said for protection of individual rights against the whims of majorities — and not only on this issue.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On May 2, Politico hit America with a bombshell scoop: A leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning the last 50 years of federal jurisprudence on abortion, discarding Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and returning the matter to the states.

Predictable responses ensued: Outrage from pro-choice activists who want Roe left intact, and outrage from Republican commentators that the opinion, which would likely have been released some time in the next two months, was preemptively leaked to the media.

While I naturally have my own opinions on Roe/Casey, and on the current case (Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization), I’m not going to share them here.

And while I get the outrage from the right concerning the leak, it’s not the leak per se that bothers me. It’s the timing.

The leaked draft is labeled “Circulated: February 10, 2022.”

Assuming the document is real (which I have no particular reason to doubt), and that it follows rather than anticipates an actual vote of the Supreme Court’s member justices on the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was decided three months ago — and we may have to wait up to two MORE months before the court gets around to telling us about it.

Most Americans who care about this case seem to agree that a lot turns on the Court’s decision.

Every day that passes without an officially released ruling means more abortions are performed in Mississippi. The position of the state of Mississippi — agree with it or not — is that those abortions violate the right to life of the aborted fetuses, which is why it passed the ban that led to the case.

In the meantime, Mississippi’s abortion providers (whose position — agree with it or not — is that abortion is a human right which the Mississippi ban violates) are forced to operate in an environment of continuing uncertainty.

And since it’s a Supreme Court decision, every state government and every abortion provider in America has a similar stake in the outcome.

Why are we still waiting on the Court to publicly announce a decision it made months ago?

The Constitution assigns appellate jurisdiction to the Supreme Court “under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”

Here’s a suggestion: Congress should require the Court to publicly announce its decisions within one business day of voting.

Justificatory opinions can come later, but the Court owes  litigants — and the country — promptness in resolution of disputes.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY