When the election of 1988 loomed, I was 26, my wife 25, and our daughter ten months. We were very much self-involved with our own little family tribe of three and not much interested in the election between George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis.
But we decided to watch one of the debates and discovered that Dukakis was pro-choice and Bush pro-life. That alone decided us for Dukakis. We knew nothing of the intricacies of abortion law, only that in New York abortion was available and we wanted it to stay that way. We also knew that we wanted our daughter to have that freedom of choice when she grew up and that her future freedom was the thing that was most important to us as voters.
I have no recollection of whether we voted for Dukakis or simply rooted for him. In any event he won New York and a handful of other “blue” states but otherwise was generally walloped on election day.
My daughter’s 34 now and is expecting her first child, our first grandchild. I am excited and nervous. Birth is a scary miracle, and above all I want my daughter to be safe.
When my wife was in the hospital in 1988 about to give birth, my mother-in-law wanted to come to watch over her daughter. My wife instructed me to tell her mother to keep away. I did as I was told and my mother-in-law yelled at me (not for the last time!) I now understand and empathize with the primal urge of my mother-in-law to be present at the hospital, because while an expectant grandparent is excited to have her first grandchild, what takes precedence is concern for your child undergoing the scary miracle of birth.
Supreme Spartan Folly
Just as Spartan boys were taken from their parents at a young age to be trained relentlessly and brutally to be warriors, the five ideologue Justices who overturned Roe were taken by The Federalist Society (formed in 1982) from a young intellectual age and trained relentlessly to think exactly as the Federalist society wanted them to think. Kill Roe and preserve and protect the Second Amendment in fossilized amber.
I have not included Justice Roberts in this group, because for one thing he tried to find an infinitely more reasonable middle ground by simply ruling in favor of the Mississippi statute that set fifteen weeks as the allowable abortion restriction and stopping there. Far from ideal, but infinitely preferable to overturning Roe. For another thing, Roberts bears my last name and, while no relation, when he acts reasonably, I like to pretend he’s a distant cousin.
Supreme Wisdom about Bacteria That Devours Oil
In 1980, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in the case of Diamond v. Chakrabarty. The case was about whether a strain of man-made, oil-spill eating bacterium (invented by Chakrabarty, a GE scientist) could be patented, even though it was a living organism. Up until then, patents were not given to anything that could be said to be alive.
In a 5-4 decision, Chief Justice Warren Burger issued the majority opinion ruling for Chakrabarty thereby extending patent law to include man-made organisms. The Chakrabarty ruling is credited with greatly accelerating the biotechnology revolution and all the medical wonders that followed.
One of the arguments in the Chakrabarty case against expanding the scope of patent protection to living matter was that there would be unknown hazards involved in using micro-organisms to invent new things. Justice Burger’s response was to point out that science was unstoppable regardless of how the Court ruled:
“The grant or denial of patents on micro-organisms is not likely to put an end to genetic research or to its attendant risks….legislative or judicial fiat as to patentability will not deter the scientific mind from probing into the unknown any more than Canute could command the tides.”
Canute v. Xerxes
Justice Burger referred to the famous story about Canute, an 11th Century King in Britain. King Canute gathered his court to the seashore to witness him commanding the tides to stop. Despite his command, the tides kept rolling in, thereby proving to the nobles that his secular powers had limits. He could not “command the tides.” (Picture below of “Canute”s Rebuke”)
Just as Burger knew the Court could not command science to stop.
Xerxes, on the other hand, was a Persian king (circa 450 B.C.) who planned to invade Greece via bridges built over the Dardanelles Strait (the body of water separating Turkey from the mainland of Europe). When the sea stormed and washed away his bridges, a furious Xerxes had the sea whipped with chains 300 times and did other things worthy of an ancient shmendrick (Yiddish for “not a compliment.”)
So with regard to the ruling striking down Roe, I see the five retrograde ideologues as being Xerxes rather than Canute, unaware of the long term limits of their power, unaware that progress and history will pass them by, unaware that their legacy will be as ignorant barbarians.
Yes, their ruling will cause great danger for many pregnant women and terrible anxiety for them and their families.
However.
The technology of medical (pharmaceutical) abortion is only going to get better. The availability of that technology will only increase (think telemedicine.) 1 Those of us who believe in a woman’s right to choose are going to increase our support for abortion access for all women, including helping them cross state lines.
For a while, we will not have an abortion regime of rare, safe, and legal. We will have to settle for rare, safe, and available, legal or not.
Here’s a column from the Times that suggests ways to help. It inspired me to give.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/opinion/abortion-roe-activism-how-to-help.html
An expert panel convened by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine in 2018 concluded that there is no medical need for medication abortion to be administered in the physical presence of a health care provider.
Agree. The Roberts solution was a reasonable solution to a moment fraught with the potential to further aggravate an America that is already badly enflamed. Those who applaud the ruling because it is consistent with the idea that these issues are best resolved by the states are tragically mistaken in their belief that somehow or another wisdom will emanate from the local level. The moral and ethical questions of ending a pregnancy are so complex and so particular to the specific people and circumstances in question that even a democracy as great as ours is not capable of producing legislation that can rightfully decide for all women and all pregnancies. Let each woman decide for herself. And if it is true, as many argue, that some women will decide cavalierly, is it not also true that the odds of a pregnant woman deciding cavalierly, are no greater than that of state legislators, more and more prone to extreme- wing positions, deciding cynically and disdainfully?
Thank you for including the NYT link for ways to help women seeking abortions. Very helpful. And thanks for remembering Dukakis.
As a psychologist who has treated women and/or their partners for over 50 years, I can say that I have never encountered anyone who has/have been “cavalier “ about making the decision to undergo an abortion. It is a heart wrenching decision most often accompanied by post procedural grief, and, many times, long term. There is a handmaiden implication that women who engage in sex are “sluts” and that sex should be for procreation. Why is the court whispering about banning contraception?
Lost a lot of sleep over the past week’s Court’s decisions and expect the decision over voting procedures being moved to state and local levels will produce more agita. Your next substack?