THE SUPREMES RUN AMOK

COMMENTARY

DEFEND ABORTION RIGHTS-DEFEND ABORTION CLINICS-FREE ABORTION ON DEMAND!

No leftist has, or should have any illusions, particularly these days with the current composition of the United States Supreme Court, that any of our hard fought constitutional safeguards are safe from attack. The constitutionally-sanctioned right to privacy took a rather big hit on April 18, 2007 when the people in black, or I should say men in black, voted 5-4 to uphold a federally-enacted ban against so-called ‘partial-birth’ abortions passed by a Republican Congress and signed into law by one George W. Bush. While we have long seen the Fourth Amendment right to security from unwarranted searches and seizures become emasculated by these closet Nazis this is the first time that the new rightist majority has taken direct aim at the right to abortion. It was not pretty and the future looks equally bleak.

In the case of the previously mentioned Fourth Amendment, however, the esteemed justices at least had the defense, as I have noted elsewhere, that they were unaware that such constitutional safeguards existed. I have it on good authority that Justice Thomas did not even know that such an amendment existed. Jusstice Scalia is aware of the amendment but believes that it only applies to writs of general assistance that were actually signed by George III or one of his royal agents. Apparently their expensive law educations did not include courses on such trivial matters. But on the question of abortion the two new Bush-appointed Supremes- Roberts and Alito- were placed on the court for no other reason than to take dead aim at the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision. And they came through.

Well so much for the obvious. What is not quite so obvious and what should concern leftists who understand the need to desperately defend abortion rights is the response of the major women’s rights group the bourgeois National Organization for Women (NOW). According to a statement issued by NOW in response to the Supreme Court decision the way to beat back this latest challenge to abortion rights for all women is to elect a Congress and a President, presumably Democratic, that will overturn the federally-mandated ban. Jesus, have these people lost all political imagination. A little primer on the subject would reveal that one of the key factors in the Roe Court’s decision resulted from the pressure from the streets that women and their allies organized. That lesson apparently has been lost in the mist of time. Nevertheless we have not forgotten that tactic and we better be prepared to use it again. And while we are at it we had better dust off our old slogans. DEFEND ABORTION RIGHTS! DEFEND ABORTION CLINICS! DEFEND ABORTION ON DEMAND!