PROTECTING REPRODUCTIVE (AND OTHER) RIGHTS FROM ALITO'S EGREGIOUS PRECEDENT
As a strong pro-Choice voter, I don't often agree with one of the state's leading anti-Choice activists. But -- with one significant exception -- I find myself concurring, albeit in great discomfort, with much of what Andrew Shirvell, executive director of Florida Voice for the Unborn, said at a rally in Tallahassee advocating for the legislature to enact a total ban on abortions:
"They can do it for property insurance, they can do it for congressional maps, they can do it to take down Disney, praise the Lord. They can certainly do it for our unborn children here in Florida.... Lives are at stake."
First, here's what I disagree with: Shirvell's use of the term "children" to describe fetuses. Shirvell is voicing an opinion, one that his faith tradition holds. Florida Voice for the Unborn, and much of the anti-Choice community, bases its opposition to abortion on its religious beliefs; according to its website, "the work of Florida Voice for the Unborn is guided by faith in God's only son, Jesus Christ."
But it is a fact -- not opinion -- that different religions believe human life begins at different stages of development. My faith tradition believes that until a fetus is actually born, it is not a child; instead, it is potential life, a physical part of the pregnant individual's body, not yet having a life of its own.
And so, a ban on abortion unduly favors one religious view -- Shirvell's -- over mine and others. And while I defend the right of Shirvell and his fellow congregationalists to personally forego or avoid -- and publicly advocate against -- abortions, his opinion should not be enshrined in public policy. Polls show a substantial majority of Floridians of many faith and political traditions agree with me on that: a new survey by Florida Atlantic University found that 67% of respondents -- including most Republicans -- believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases.
But the rest of Shirvell's comments are accurate -- and chilling to those of us who believe in reproductive freedom.
It is a fact, as Shirvell said, that the Florida legislature could assert a right to pass a total ban on abortion. That would certainly be challenged in the courts, but as the U.S. Supreme Court has seemingly shown us in its shameful draft decision striking down Roe v. Wade, a conservative supermajority is quite comfortable eviscerating a right Americans have relied on for half a century.
And if you're wondering whether any Treasure Coast legislator would go along with a scheme as radical as Shirvell's, don't: present at the abortion-ban rally in Tallahassee was Rep. Dana Trabulsy (R-Fort Pierce).
Shirvell was also right when he said "lives are at stake." They are indeed: in the words of legal scholar Laurence Tribe, overturning Roe would be "devastating to tens of millions of people, and is likely to lead to the death of women in botched abortions," a return to the frightening pre-Roe landscape.
Justice Samuel Alito's draft decision argues that Roe can be upended because: a) "the Constitution makes no reference to abortion"; and b) the right to an abortion is not "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." However, in the original Roe decision, the Supreme Court, by a 7-2 margin (five of the seven in the majority were appointed by Republican presidents), found that the right is indeed rooted in the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause.
If current rights can be struck down by partisan state legislatures because they're not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution and not "deeply rooted" in American history, Tribe notes that "all kinds of privacy rights and rights of personal integrity and autonomy" are at stake. Among other "unenumerated" rights now guaranteed in all states by the Supreme Court, these could also be in jeopardy:
the right to marry a person of a different race (decided in Loving v. Virginia, 1967)
the right to marry while in prison (Turner v. Safley, 1987)
the right to obtain contraceptives (Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965; Eisenstadt v. Baird, 1972; and Carey v. Population Services International, 1967)
the right to reside with relatives (Moore v. East Cleveland, 1977)
the right to make decisions about the education of one's children (Pierce v. Society of Sisters; and Meyer v. Nebraska, 1977)
the right not to be sterilized without consent (Skinner v. Oklahoma, 1942)
the right, in certain circumstances, not to undergo involuntary surgery, forced administration of drugs, or other substantially similar procedures (Winston v. Lee, 1985; Washington v. Harper, 1990; and Rochin v. California, 1952)
the right to engage in private, consensual sex acts (Laurence v. Texas, 2003)
the right to marry a person of the same sex (Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015)
All of those Supreme Court rulings -- in addition to Roe v. Wade -- were relatively recent victories of ordinary citizens over dated, suffocating, authoritarian government overreach. Yet Alito's draft includes this jaw-dropping sentence: "Roe was egregiously wrong from the start." What is truly egregious would be the precedent the Supreme Court would be setting by overturning a decision that has secured a right most Americans have embraced and rely upon, a right that has leveled the field for all citizens, and a right that has been affirmed numerous times by the Court itself over the years.
Nevertheless, Alito concludes it is time to "return the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives," the U.S. Congress and 50 state legislatures. That is, of course, why Shirvell and his bunch were holding their rally outside the state Capitol.
And that's why, if the Alito draft is affirmed, those of us who believe in reproductive freedom must rally around pro-Choice candidates this fall. While we won't know definitively who will be on the ballot until after the August primary, here are major pro-Choice federal and state candidates in St. Lucie County who merit our support -- all Democrats and all opposing Republican incumbents with anti-Choice records:
for Governor: either Charlie Crist or Nikki Fried (running to unseat Ron DeSantis)
for U.S. Senator: Val Demings (running to unseat Marco Rubio)
for U.S. Congressperson: Corinna Balderramos Robinson (running to unseat Brian Mast)
for State Representative (D84): Forest Blanton (running to unseat Dana Trabulsy)
for State Representative (D85): Curtis Tucker (running to unseat Toby Overdorf)
More than ever, we have to vote like our rights -- and lives -- depend on it. Because they do.
-Ellis Bromberg