Abortion and the Wild West Approach to Law

Texas lost its Supreme Court battle over abortion. While abortion is an abomination I can't say that I feel very sorry for the so-called Pro-Life movement and its attempts to destroy it.

They argue that this was about women's health. No, it wasn't and they've been called out. This was politics pure and simple. It was an attempt to undermine and subvert the law... not a very conservative position or tactic.

They were trying to destroy abortion via 'death by a thousand cuts' as one pundit rightly put it.

Yes, I'd like to see abortion gone but treating the law as a plaything, something to manipulate and bandy about is dangerous and destructive. More harm to our society and loss of freedom has been generated by such manipulations of the judiciary. It's repugnant and amounts to 'let us do evil so that good may come'.

That's not an acceptable position for Christians to take. And when these tactics are employed, you are exposed for what you are... political hacks, people jockeying for power... scoundrels.

And you lose your witness and moral integrity as a result.

The same people arguing from the so-called Originalist position will chafe at the Supreme Court's appeal to 'privacy' as a justification for non-state intervention in a woman's health care decisions and relationship with her doctor. They argue that 'privacy' does not exist, it was something read into the 4^th and 14^th amendments.

But at the same time these same folks will argue for the Unitary Executive and happily expand that concept beyond anything ever meant or dreamed of by the founders when they spoke of a 'Commander-in-Chief' of the armed forces. The National Security Act and the Council (NSC) that goes with it cannot be defended on the basis of an Originalist argument. It undermines the powers granted to Congress and transfers them to the President, places the military more directly under his control (as Douglas MacArthur found out) and created what can only be described as a private covert army... the CIA. The creation of the NSA and other clandestine agencies followed... all practically speaking unaccountable and covert not only to the public but largely to Congress itself.

The Patriot Act would have been unthinkable if this apparatus had not already been established. Originalism has always been a fiction but (to speak anachronistically) even the pretence of it died with WWII.

The Right-wing judicial movements utterly lack integrity and are just as guilty of manipulation as their opponents. But there's a difference, the Right supposedly is largely compromised of conservative Christians (or at least those sharing its values) who ostensibly operate under the guidelines of a higher moral code and authority.

Then why do they behave like the other sewer rats inhabiting the political world? Why are they subject to the same drive in their scheming, plotting, lying and cheating?

Their attempts to undermine abortion are not about saving the lives of Black babies, women's health or anything else along those lines. This is about energising a very emotional and powerful section of their base and seeking to undermine and destroy the political enemies in order to control the social narrative.

Planned Parenthood while hardly an organisation to be esteemed nevertheless does a great deal to help poor women with a lot of basic healthcare. The Right consistently lies and insists they receive tax dollars for abortions. When pressed they'll admit that's not the case but that they would have to use their donor money for other services instead of abortions if they weren't receiving tax dollars.

It's a deceptive argument and if that type of argument is valid it could be employed on a wide spectrum in criticising many Right-wing projects.  

I don't admire Planned Parenthood or Margaret Sanger but I'm also weary of the lies and misrepresentations propagated by the Right wing which has little interest in truth but instead seeks to manipulate church members and those that digest the bile that is their media.