By Donald A. Collins | 2 August 2023
Church and State
Donald Trump accounted as one of his major accomplishments as President was packing the Supreme Court with new Justices that made possible the ignoring of a near 50-year precedent for the Court to kill Roe/Casey on June 24, 2022.
At that time and since many including me have predicted that the GOP would pay a steep price at the ballot box.
The initial proof of that opinion came quickly by the results or the November 8, 2022, midterm elections. The GOP won the US House by a razor thin margin but lost other major races around the US. This result was despite the typical usual bad showing of the party out of power.
Read here the NPR report.
Here are 4 key lessons about abortion rights from the midterm elections.https://t.co/hpKlo5IHqG
— NPR (@NPR) November 28, 2022
Personally, I see the GOP is now so out of step with demography and cultural preferences that its extinction is truly on the line.
After this decades long religious war on women and their families which was taken up by the GOP, these 3 new religious zealot Justices were joined by Justice Samuel Alito, who authored the Dobbs decision and Clarence Thomas to skew the cultural landscape for decades ahead on choice and other issues such as gun control, gender identity, voting rights and racial equality. It didn’t have to happen to the GOP; Senator Barry Goldwater, known as Mr. Conservative, and his wife were staunchly pro choice.
One example of the latter effect on other related issues was the June 29th decision to kill affirmative action, after 40 years, a longtime personal goal of Justice Thomas, again negating the cherished legacy of Stare decisis!
Read more here.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, we should no longer consider an institution as being “elite” by how much of society it rejects. An elite institution must demonstrate the value in advancing democratic ideals and human potential. https://t.co/ZUW1EVUeOe
— Andre M. Perry (@andreperryedu) June 30, 2023
The concurrent vast media reports of the failure of some Justices including Alito and Thomas to disclose conflicts of interest has given our highest court the lowest regard in the eyes of the public in my 92-year lifetime. Such behavior cries out for requiring for the same code of ethics that now governs all other Federal courts.
In a sharply divided Congress this Supreme Court now assumes the unhealthy power to legislate from the bench.
The likely effect of the GOP’s apparent “victory” over choice in killing Roe came personally to me earlier this year as I was golfing with a man who mentioned he was Catholic, who told me his OB/GYN daughter had moved from Texas to a hospital practice in DC.
She is far from alone as the substantial exodus of medical talent can be expected to continue.
Read here the facts.
OB-GYN Residents Are Required to Receive Clinical Abortion Training. They Can’t Do That in Texas. https://t.co/qpu9H4tqaN
— NewMexican, Ex-Texan (@OGrady_Texas) May 24, 2023
All anti choice states will pay the price.
In the year since the Dobbs decision, we've seen grave restrictions on abortion and pregnancy care. But it's had subtler effects too: Med students and residents are avoiding red states where they can't fully study and may be at personal risk. (Thread)https://t.co/3EewHW8U1C
— Maryn McKenna (@marynmck) June 20, 2023
Again, I offer a personal story. Being both in our 90s, it is helpful for my wife and me to employ nurses’ aides full time to help us with many daily tasks. We come to know each of these ladies and much appreciate their assistance.
Thus, recently when one of our helpers developed abdominal pain, I drove her to the emergency department of a local hospital where I subsequently learned she had a miscarriage, fortunately an early stage of pregnancy and was treated promptly and safely and is now back to helping us. Abortion care in DC is legal and readily available.
Miscarriages happen in 10 to 20% of pregnancies so banning abortions only bans safe abortions.
Read the facts here.
As the NY Times tells us “They Had Miscarriages, and New Abortion Laws Obstructed Treatment. Surgical procedures and medication for miscarriages are identical to those for abortion, and some patients report delayed or denied miscarriage care because doctors and pharmacists fear running afoul of abortion bans.”.
Read that full grim story here.
You can already find stories of women refused care for miscarriage; this is a good one. But know that you're not hearing the vast majority of these stories. You're only hearing from the women who feel they can speak out & can find a reporter to speak to.https://t.co/7JzlTKm72A
— Jill Filipovic (@JillFilipovic) July 18, 2022
In anti-choice states, providers are in questionable positions since providing abortions in flawed pregnancies of which there are many, some late in the pregnancy could result in severe legal consequences for doctors.
What happens to vital abortion training in medical schools in anti-abortion states? Many aspirant MD must go elsewhere.
Read here the vast stupidity of the present Dobbs decision!
Browse any medical dictionary, and before hitting appendectomy and anesthesia, you’ll find abortion. The first two are part of standard physician education. But for many U.S. medical students who want to learn about abortions, options are scarce. https://t.co/IyN3dpslwZ
— PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) April 20, 2022
The 2024 election, coming amidst a Civil War like time in America, looms as the most important since 1860.
If we choose the promised Trump authoritarian government, all of us including those hypnotized MAGANs will learn that the true meaning of choice goes far beyond the right to choose abortion!
Trump’s plans involves turning America into Russia or Hungary, where the president becomes the singular center of federal power, eclipsing Congress and the Courts.
How a Second Trump Term Could End US Democracy https://t.co/9jysXwHbSD
— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) August 2, 2023
GOP extinction? Well, Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post way back in 2016 said Trump put the GOP into an identify crisis.
But read here when in her 7/6/23 op ed, Peggy Noonan suggested Trump’s Waterloo was at hand.
Extinction? Well, recall the NO Nothings of pre-Civil War days. Change is in the air!! Across the board, the lack of integrity of so many elected GOP representatives and the scumbag people Trump brought in to help him with his coup should alert the many honorable Republicans that if not extinction, then fundamental change. A new name would help.
But, and this comes from many respected observers as a serious warning, now is not a time for a third party for the chances of getting Trump again in a close election this likely not small.
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?”, “Will Choice and Democracy Win?”, “Can Our U.S. Survive 8 Plus Billion of Us” and “Economic Growth: A Cancer on all Earthly Life”."What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?": https://t.co/fHuh0CG6JD
"We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?": https://t.co/TA4j7cp1tE
"From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013": https://t.co/lkC2t3E1A9 pic.twitter.com/bQsL2mLBcO— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) November 1, 2021
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