I should state up front that I am a white woman, and compared to many in this country I would be considered privileged. There have certainly been times in my life that I didn’t fully grasp that and said and did things that make me cringe now, wondering how I could have been so unaware, but I never had the power mixed with that cluelessness to affect the lives of so many people in such drastic ways. The U.S. Supreme Court does have that power, and appears to have a majority of clueless wonders that are about to do just that.
Depending on what poll you look at, anywhere from half the country to three-quarters support the right of a woman to control what happens to her body (i.e. get an abortion), yet it looks very much like that long-held civil right will be taken away by what, I view, is absolute cluelessness of the world we live in, and with five of those justices being white, it really is impossible to not proclaim it white privilege after hearing their comments last week.
First off I should point out that each justice is appointed to his or her seat for LIFE. No one I know has a job for life. Years ago, some at large Fortune 500 companies would be able to have such a luxury, but that’s been gone for decades now. Plus, their starting salary is a little over $250,0000 annually. I don’t know the full package, but they receive federal health insurance, which is probably better than most. I’m pretty sure they receive paid medical/family leave, which most other people in this county do not have access to. I worked with women who’d save up all their vacation and sick time in order to use that toward their otherwise unpaid maternity leave.
I suppose it’s nothing new to have justices so out of touch with most citizens, yet making universal decisions that affect so many lives, but the egregiousness of potentially striking down Roe v. Wade is beyond the pale. I’ll leave the fact that both Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett said under oath in their confirmation hearings that Roe v. Wade was precedent; perhaps some senators will attempt to charge them with perjury, even though I knew they were lying through their teeth. No, what bothers me the most is how they all just have no idea about the lives of citizens in this country, specifically those who get abortions. Regardless of what many justices claimed on their talking tours recently, the majority are ideologues unable to see this issue from any view other than their own.
John Roberts tried to appear less rabid than
the others and focus on why a woman needed longer than fifteen weeks to get her
abortion, not understanding that many women have irregular periods (I know when
I was younger, and before I got on the pill, I could easily miss one or two,
yet not be pregnant). Roberts also fails to understand that the cost of such a
procedure, not covered by most (if any) insurance plans can be a huge burden
for many women in already tough financial situations. Many clinics offer some
amount of financial aid to women in need, but often require them to provide
some of the cost, which can take time to raise. The fact that for many women there
is only one clinic in their state can also be an almost insurmountable problem
for someone living hours away and without a reliable vehicle or means to get
there. Plus, there’s having to take the time off of work, which for many hourly
employees, even in late-2021 with the employee shortage, could cause them to
get fired, or at least make them lose much-needed income. Needless to say, it takes a woman time to deal with all these situations.
Now to Kavanaugh. Ugh. Only a white privileged man could want to toss abortion, which I believe is a civil right, back to the states. Most of us who have paid attention in history classes or are old enough to remember know what it was like when individual states decided on an individual’s rights. Does this mean he wants gay marriage passed back to the states?
Then there’s Alito. Double ugh. He seemed to want to remind people when the Supreme Court showed it’s clueless white privilege before in Plessy v. Ferguson, and how overcoming precedent with Brown v. Board of Education was actually a good thing for the country. Well, I’m not a lawyer or a legal scholar, but my views are that overturning Plessy v. Ferguson gave African-Americans rights by allowing them to go to the same schools as everybody else, while overturning Roe v. Wade will strip women of their rights through enforced pregnancies.
Finally, the biggest clueless wonder for me was Amy Coney Barrett, in all her Marie Antoinette–esque eye-rolling splendor, asking why if a woman was pregnant couldn’t she just be enforced to give birth and then give it up at the hospital. I barely have the words to respond because I just want to scream. I’m sure to a woman of privilege (see page 66) this might make sense. She has an extremely well paying job, and even before her Supreme Court appointment was paid well, as was her husband. In 2021 a well paying job for many Americans is working hourly at an Amazon warehouse. How likely is it that a pregnant woman could meet the daily quotas set at such a place? I’m not pregnant and I don’t think I could meet them. This means that such a woman may likely lose her job, putting her and her family in a worse situation for months to come, possibly needing government support (which Republicans don’t want to give out). It seems unlikely that a pregnant woman would be hired by a company, even if she told them she wasn’t keeping the baby and wouldn’t need maternity leave. Plus, lets remind everyone that we don’t have universal health care, so there’s a good chance this hypothetical woman won’t have insurance to insure she and her child are cared for medically during the pregnancy. If she’s lucky, her state has expanded Medicaid, but the states most aggressively restricting abortion have not done this. This means that this woman probably won’t get the care she needs, and then will come to the hospital to deliver her child and relinquish it, and then leave the bill for the hospital to eat. There’s also a good chance that she and the baby might not survive the delivery. But that world, where people don’t have insurance, paid leave, money for food and pre-natal vitamins, is not the world that Amy Coney Barrett or her fellow justices live in.
I should point out the obvious, for many privileged citizens in this country, whatever the decision ends up being, they won’t be affected at all. Several states have codified the right to abortion, either throughout pregnancy or until viability of the fetus. So, just like pre-Roe, those that are privileged to either live in the “right” state or have the means to get there, will be able to control what happens to their body. This fact further shows just how out of step many of these justices are, and basically how inconsequential they are.
The least these justices could do before turning lives upside in this country, and further showing how backward we’ve become, is to basically walk a mile in other people’s shoes – learn about the obstacles in their lives and what they are going through. A humane person would do this.