During Donald Trump’s four year term as President of the United States of America, three vacancies occurred in the ranks of the nine Justices of the Supreme Court.
He nominated three ultra conservative judges to replace them and made it clear to those judges that he expected them to remove the constitutional right of women to have an abortion whenever the matter came before the Court. He has now publicly confirmed that he had obtained their commitment to do this. His own staff, who witnessed the discussions, have also confirmed what Trump had demanded.
Thus, it happened last month.
The Court struck out the famous ruling in the case of Roe versus Wade, made by the Court 50 years ago, and which rightly and justly gave women control over what happened to their own bodies.
The margin of the vote was 6/3. The winning votes were those of the three #Trump appointees.
At that moment, those three judges ceased to be independent custodians of the Law.. They became politicians, low grade ones. A sad day for America, and the world.
The decision hotly divided the American people who are already hugely torn apart by the issue of gun ownership.
Indeed, it is deplorable that the same people who defend the right to life of unborn babies are the same people who demand the right to own a gun so they can shoot people at will.
It is also unbelievable that, in a grossly overpopulated world,which is in grave danger of having insufficient food and fresh water for its 8.5 billion people, anyone would want to fight for the life of an unwanted child who is likely to live an unhappy life.
So it is that when an American woman falls pregnant and has reasons to abort the pregnancy, she now bears alone the full trauma, responsibility and cost of having to proceed with the birth while her male partner is not burdened in any way. He can simply walk away and make it look as though she ‘deserved it’.
Sadly, this is the way of the world in far too many unfair ways.
It becomes more clear every day that, in every challenge of life, it is women who become second class citizens.
This is not a society that I want to live in and I am certain that most of my readers will agree with me.
What can be done about it in America?
Absolutely nothing.
The Justices of the Supreme Court have lifetime appointments.
The devotees of Donald Trump will control the Supreme Court for a generation and will continue to practice their extremism. The blunt fact is that while Trump lost the election, his legacy lives on.
There is little chance of new legislation passing the Congress that will give approval for abortion as Republicans and Democrats are bitterly divided to the point of total hatred.
An unfortunate fact is that the female Justice who wrote the abortion judgement on behalf of the Court is a devoted Catholic who is a mother of 6. Her world is one in which she accepts that husbands are the head of the family. She did not set out to persecute women with this judgement. She just restored what she believes is the natural place of women, primarily child bearers, a role that she appears to have accepted herself.
It is a tragedy of history that the person she replaced on the Court was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in my view the finest jurist ever to sit on the American Supreme Court in the history of the nation, She firmly stood for justice for all humanity, especially the poor and the oppressed and especially women who were denied their rights.
Her legacy has been demeaned by her successor but her book MY OWN WORDS is inspirational. I warmly recommend that you read it and applaud the prejudice against women that she had to overcome on her way to the top of her profession. Millions of women have been similarly oppressed.
And it cannot ever be denied that 5 male Justices voted to ban abortion.
They quite clearly do not believe in gender equality.
The same judges repeated their destruction this week by decimating the powers of the USA Environment Protection Agency.
A very disappointed
EVERALD
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A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET
DINNER WITH THE FOUNDING FATHERS
THE MAN ON THE TWENTY DOLLAR NOTES
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EVERALD@LARGE
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