Supreme Court’s Behavior Needs a Power Check! Particularly on Our Constitutional Supremacy Clause!

By Donald A. Collins | 1 December 2022
Church and State

(Credit: YouTube / screengrab)

On June 24th the killing of Roe/Casey launched a nationwide trauma which, given the loggerheaded Federal government, was particularly unfortunate and made even worse with the GOP capture of the House of Representatives.

Lying about his position on choice at his Senate confirmation interrogation, Brett Kavanaugh could have saved the day, but his moral compass is so screwed up by his religious convictions that a secular decision which was advised by the Chief Justice John Roberts was ignored and permitted him and 3 other ideological jurists to destruct the Supreme Court’s credibility perhaps for decades to come.

Read here what Ruth Marcus, deputy editorial page editor of the Washington Post, has carefully researched the Court’s ethical shortcomings.

Roberts, despite being a practicing Roman Catholic, understood that the Dobbs decision would cause undue hardships on poor women and their families. So do most Roman Catholics and particularly most in high places of our secular government such as President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

More than the medical risk of requiring a woman to carry an unwanted fetus to delivery, a far more dangerous process than having an early abortion, it set aside almost 50 years of precedence. In short as the attached Washington Post article tells us, the Court has lost its moral compass.

My main puzzlement has long been why the anti-choice movement is so unscientifically, politically, and religiously anxious to invade the personal lives and privacy of women with no benefit to them except exercising their abstract unconnected biases. Doubtless these views are guilt fears generated by religious orthodoxies spread ruthlessly by specific religions! Much has been postulated about this, but not here now.

Even more dangerous than the choice issue is a possible upcoming SC decision on the long-established authority the Supremacy Clause of our Constitution about which you can read here.

On this past Sunday November 27th CNN program Fareed Zakaria explained what the devastating consequences could be of a SC decision to rule against keeping sacrosanct that Federal authority which allowed establishment of Federal agencies such as the FDA and other crucial agencies which provide the scientifically based expert inputs for the safe execution of laws enacted by Congress and signed into law by the President.

Read here the Wikipedia text about the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

Now it is imperative that steps be taken by Congress to keep the Court’s unintended political power from transferring power to the states and effectively destroying the traditional governance of our democracy. Hopefully such possibly adverse steps to put such power to the states will not be possible with the House GOP in very thin majority control.

Throwing the House Committee of January 6h a sop by finally allowing the Committee access to Trump’s tax returns hardly suffices against the dire prospects for the Supreme Court’s potentially damaging cases in its next term.

Articles abound about adverse cases which could come before the Court such as attacking LBGTQ rights, limiting contraceptive options, or trying to impede women from seeking out of state abortions or even making illegal in states where abortion is not legal the use of long approved early abortion pills.

Recall the Dobbs decision came about when the then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to allow confirmation late in his Presidency of President Barrack Obama’s nominee Federal Judge Merrick Garland. The continuing payback politics of this decision (ever since Judge Bork was denied a seat by Democrats) thus opened the way for President Trump in his campaign rhetoric to loudly proclaim his intention to name prolife justices. He was able to do so by naming 3 religious zealots to join one zealot already seated, Clarence Thomas, he no doubt delighted to experience payback for the interrogations he got for what later information strongly suggests was his sexual misconduct with Anita Hill.

Thomas, whose wife has been deeply involved in helping Trump’s insurrection, has refused to recuse himself, a decision which is required by judges in all other courts except the Supreme Court when obvious conflict of interest is involved.

Read here and here examples.

Trump’s own admitted sexual behavior shows the irony of his stated public position on abortion rights and illustrates the utter immorality of his prolife supporters who are Christian nationalists!

Another reform the Court sorely needs is term limits. Many court authorities have eloquently written on the need for this reform.

The dangerous irrationality of sending abortion choice to the states shows the utter ignominy of the states’ rights movement which almost kept our founding fathers from forming any union all, let alone a perfect union.

Ben Franklin knew slavery was evil, but he and the rest of our Founding Fathers couldn’t put a federal government together without including the slave states and allowing the 2nd Amendment to the Bill of Rights which allowed Southerners the rights to bear arms to keep their slaves in subjugation.

Read Franklin’s anti-slavery history here.

So back let’s turn back to understand that present biases after all can lead us as it has toward the breaking of any workable agreements.

Ultimately democracy survives only by recognizing the will of the majority.

At least 61 % of Americans believe abortion should be always legal. As our Democratic numbers increase with more and more young voters choice will be nationally restored. How soon? Who can say. Meantime, ways of ameliorating the absence of choice are coming in innovative ways.

This next time, when Dobbs will surely be overturned and an improved version of Roe enacted, we can hope that the major flaw in Roe can be excised, namely removing any government jurisdiction into women seeking abortions since it must be a woman’s right ALONE to privacy and to an abortion anytime during her pregnancy, allowing her MD to help her decide what is best for her!!!!!!!!!!

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 50 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?”, “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?”, “Vote”, “Can Homo Sapiens Survive?” and “Will Choice and Democracy Win?”.

What to know about the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision

An Argument For Fixed Terms And Expanding The Court

Why Won’t Justice Clarence Thomas Recuse Himself From Cases Involving Trump? | The Mehdi Hasan Show

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