Dominion’s Opinions: Women’s Rights are Gay Rights are Human Rights

Some of you woke up Tuesday, heard the news about Roe vs. Wade, and shrugged. After all, you don’t have a uterus and you don’t have sex with anyone who does. You floated through that day seeing and hearing the anguish of the women around you, content in the knowledge that your penis and your desire for men over women exempted you from having to give a damn. Well, you are wrong.

First, if your compassion for another’s situation is contingent on your direct personal connection to it, you are a shitty human being. More importantly, this total erosion of a woman’s right to choose CAN AND WILL lead directly to the erosion of gay rights. DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION NOW?

The leaked draft opinion coming out the Supreme Court, authored by Justice Alito, severely criticizes Roe and a later ruling in the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito wrote. “We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. …It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

He further argues that “a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions” and rather, that “an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.” Before that decision, “there was no support in American law for a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Zero. None.”

In summary, Justice Alito believes the Supreme Court should never have gotten involved in the Roe v. Wade case to begin with, that issue should remain a states’ right issue.

Hmmm… Where have we heard that before? I recall an entire war fought over this ridiculous notion. From women’s rights, to slavery, to gay rights, conservatives love to frame their goal of subjugating groups of people and denying them their freedom as a prerogative of the state. It’s not the federal government’s job to get involved in these issues. From their warped and prejudiced POV, it’s an unconstitutional overstep of federal power to create laws that supersede the power of each of the individual states. And yet we know that is all bullshit.

If we accept that it’s a state’s right to create laws restricting/banning abortion, it follows that it is a state’s right to decline to do so. Yet several states have laws on the books or pending legislation that criminalizes travel to another state to seek an abortion. In a country where we have the right (at least for the moment) to travel freely between the states, you cannot tell me what I can and cannot do in another state.

For example, certain kinds of gambling and prostitution are legal in Nevada, but not in other states. If I go to the Bunny Ranch in Reno for a little paid slap and tickle, it’s no one’s business but my own and I will not be subject to prosecution when I return to DC from my hoecation.

This draft ruling is about controlling people (in this case half of the population) and their choices, pure and simple. Almost 60% of Americans believe abortion should be legal, yet conservatives believe their opinion should have more weight than others. They say they believe in the “Right to Life,” yet that right clearly ends the moment that baby exits the uterus, because the same states that want to ban abortion do the least possible to support that human as it grows into adulthood.

So how will this impact gay rights? Embedded in the Roe decision is the concept of personal rights guaranteed to every American (remember that bullshit about “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?”). Abortion is a personal right and so is marriage to the person of your choice. Having already decided the issue of interracial marriage, which held that no state could restrict the marriage of any two people regardless of race, the gay marriage decision held that the states could not restrict the marriage of any two people regardless of gender.

These are all personal rights, i.e., the rights of the individual to engage in (or not) the described activities, meaning if you don’t want to have an abortion (or do not believe in it), don’t have one. If you are a man and don’t want to marry a man, then don’t. But what you CANNOT do is tell my sister she cannot have an abortion or tell me not to marry a man because you don’t like it (or are afraid to come out of the closet).

The draft ruling flies in the face of the concept of personal rights. It says that the state CAN tell you what you can and cannot do with your body and your life. Further, it goes on to qualify what can be defined as a personal right based on whether it is “…deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions.” Many of the personal rights and freedoms we enjoy, from abortion to interracial and gay marriage to contraception, were once part of a tradition of prohibiting the activity “…on pain of criminal punishment [that] persisted from the earliest days of the common law…,” ESPECIALLY gay marriage!

Based on this reductive train of logic, Justice Thomas could not be married to his wife because, per the deeply held traditions of this country, he isn’t even a whole person. Justice Coney Barret and MILLIONS of other women could not hold positions of power because, according to common low, women are property and can’t be trusted with/aren’t smart enough to vote. And you and I certainly couldn’t get married. Hell, for much of this country’s history, we were persecuted as a rule and barely tolerated (when it was convenient) as a rare exception. It was only in 2003 that the Supreme Court decriminalized homosexuality. Under Alito’s line of reasoning, that decision could be on the chopping block.

And so yes, while this ruling (should it become final) immediately affects women (like your mother, your sister, your cousin, your aunt), the day is coming soon where the downstream effects will affect you, so we must stand together. Women’s Rights are Gay Rights are Human Rights.