Members of the Supreme Court sit for a group portrait at the Supreme Court building in 2022. — AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
Former President Donald Trump campaigned in 2016 on overturning Roe v. Wade, and as president appointed three Supreme Court justices who in 2022 provided the deciding votes eliminating the federal constitutional right to abortion.
In last week’s first presidential debate of 2024, Trump falsely contended everyone was happy with overturning Roe.
“As far as abortion’s concerned it’s back to the states,” Trump said, contending the Founding Fathers would have been happy with the end of Roe. “Everybody wanted it brought back.”
That is not true.
Despite Trump’s embrace of the conservative-leaning Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade that had legalized abortion nationwide, the ruling overturning Roe is not popular.
Polls have consistently shown significant opposition to overturning Roe and voters have punished Republicans in recent elections for it.
Elections have consequences.
In addition to overturning Roe, the Supreme Court has restricted the rights of Black Americans and women. Legal attacks against companies’ diversity and inclusion efforts have been on the rise since June of last year, when the Supreme Court ruled to end affirmative action in college admissions.
During his one term as president, Trump selected three conservative judges, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. In his single term as president, Biden appointed liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The court’s three liberal judges — Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — are outnumbered by the court’s conservative majority.
In the past two years, the court’s 6-3 conservative majority has rolled back abortion rights, widened gun rights and rejected affirmative action admissions policies long used by colleges and universities to increase enrollment of Black and Hispanic students.
In addition, as Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty correctly observed, “The Supreme Court, not unexpectedly, handed an enormous victory to conservatives on Friday, June 28, by overturning a four-decade-old precedent known as the Chevron deference,” which gave federal agencies broad leeway for how to interpret and administer their authority under ambiguous federal laws.
All of that might sound pretty technical, but the implications of the court’s 6-3 ruling could affect vast swaths of American life, from the cleanliness of our air and water, to the safety of consumer products, to how financial markets work.”
On Monday, July1, the Supreme Court voted 6-3 along party lines to grant Trump some immunity from criminal prosecution in the Jan. 6 insurrection case. Conservative justices decided in favor of absolute immunity for official presidential acts, which liberal justices opposed. The Trump campaign hailed the ruling as a majority victory for the former president.
If you are still undecided on whether to vote or who to vote for in the November election, consider the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court moving even more to the right.
Voters must ask themselves, if a seat becomes open on the Supreme Court during the next presidential term, whether because of a retirement, debilitating illness or sudden death, do they really want another justice appointed by a convicted felon who tried to overthrow the duly elected government of the United States of America, inciting an insurrection in the process.
Reprinted from the Philadelphia Tribune
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