This commentary is by Elayne Clift, a syndicated columnist who writes from Brattleboro.
It was like standing alone on a nuclear landscape. Like being in the center of a dystopian nightmare. Like being on a sinking ship without a life vest.
At least that’s how it felt to me as the Supreme Court’s decisions were handed down, one after the other, in its recent session.
Stunned and frightened like so many others were, I wondered whether the faux-Christian, conservative justices on the court had any idea what the consequences of their hideous decisions would be as they ended a term in which civil rights in America were systematically ended. Did they willfully ignore what would happen because of their draconian decisions; did they not have a clue; or did they simply not care?
Was this the legacy they wanted to leave their children and grandchildren, let alone the rest of us? Did they have any sense of the consequences, intended or otherwise, for American citizens, and the planet? Do they grasp the context of our Constitution, or the concept of democracy? Do they really hate women and others unlike them this much?
As these questions roiled in my head, I thought about some of the consequences the justices’ right-wing agenda presented, beginning with what would befall women and girls who no longer have agency over their bodies and lives, or access to reproductive health care.
Among them is a 10-year old child pregnant by paternal rape being denied an abortion in Ohio, women with pre-eclampsia (high blood pressure that can be fatal to mother and baby when not treated urgently), women with gestational diabetes (a condition that can be harmful to mother and baby), women with ectopic pregnancies (in which a fertilized egg attaches to the Fallopian tube instead of the uterus, an emergency situation requiring immediate care to prevent a fatal rupture), women whose lives are at risk because of drastic fetal anomalies.
Now women with these or other urgent reproductive health care needs are too frightened to seek timely reproductive care while providers are increasingly unwilling to offer it, both for fear of being prosecuted.
These examples offer a small glimpse into what will happen to women and girls because of the court’s decision to end Roe v. Wade, but this much we know: Many of them will die. So will women who elect to have an illegal or self-induced abortion for any reason.
I also thought about the death knell being sounded for the fragile, struggling planet on which we live due to environmental degradation and the global warming crisis. Just these staggering statistics are enough to send chills down my spine: “Every hour, 1,692 acres of productive dry land become desert. We are using up 50 more natural resources than the Earth can provide.” What’s more, “We have a garbage island floating in our ocean, mostly comprised of plastics — the size of India, Europe and Mexico combined.”
Further, “the effects of human-caused global warming are happening now, are irreversible on the timescale of people alive today, and will worsen in the decades to come,” according to NASA. “Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up earlier, plant and animal ranges have shifted, and trees are flowering sooner,” while “effects that scientists had predicted in the past would result from global climate change are now occurring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise and longer, more intense heat waves.”
Against these chilling facts, six Supreme Court justices saw to it that the Environmental Protection Agency would now have limited ability to regulate carbon emissions from power plants, “making it nearly impossible to cut greenhouse as emissions anytime soon.” In their dissenting opinionm three justices said the majority had stripped the EPA of “the power to respond to the most pressing environmental challenge of our time.”
When it comes to separation of church and state, the conservative majority outdid itself. Recent decisions included a ruling in favor of a Christian group’s plea to allow a flag with a cross on it to fly over Boston’s City Hall. Another decision allowed taxpayer money to cover tuition for students attending religious high schools, while the six Supremes decided in favor of a high school football coach who led Christian prayers on the playing field after games.’
Then there are states’ rights. Again, the Scotus-6 opined against New York State’s concealed-carry law, requiring state residents to have a permit to carry a gun in public. That law’s requirements for a permit were specific and in the public interest, but when two guys who wanted to carry guns publicly were denied permits, they appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled the state law violated the 14th and Second Amendments.
The decision proffered that the Second Amendment protects the public-carry of firearms and set up a new test for courts to determine whether a law violates the Second Amendment. New York’s law was struck down, and other laws like New York’s are likely to be struck down now.
Is it any wonder these frightening, tip-of-the-iceberg rulings made me feel like we’re approaching nuclear winter? Bundle up. The Supreme Court is just getting started.