There is no way out.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
The United States Supreme Court has just buried Roe v. Wade and we still find ourselves having to talk about Donald Trump.
Because there is a causal link between his presidency and this verdict, which is as retrograde as it is distressing.
If abortion will be banned in half of the American states, it is because this populist billionaire succeeded in modifying the balance of the highest court of his country.
If women in the United States have just received a historic “slap in the face” (to quote Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi), it is because Donald Trump was able to appoint three ultra-conservative justices to the Supreme Court.
If the United States has just gone back 50 years, it is because these judges had been selected, precisely, in the hope that they would tear Roe v. Wade…and more. Because they may have just opened a Pandora’s box (we’ll come back to this later).
Result: this court finds itself today with six conservative judges against three progressive judges. And those appointed by Donald Trump are part of the block of judges that smashed Roe v. Wade.
Magistrates who, with the exception of Chief Justice John Roberts, do not seem the least bit concerned about the impact of this verdict on the legitimacy of the court.
Joe Biden was right to say that it was both a sad day for the country AND for its highest court.
The decision is one of the worst of the last handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States. It places itself on the wrong side of history on this fundamental issue.
It’s a verdict that sets the country back in 1973 and demonstrates that the court now shows more regard for the rights of gun owners than for those of women.
It is also a contemptuous verdict for the opinion of judges who, over the past decades, have tried to reflect the evolution of American society, particularly on the question of equality between men and women. Note also that two-thirds of Americans did not want to see Roe c. Wade disappear.
Finally, it is a verdict that gives Americans the impression that the highest court in the land is no longer independent.
The impact of the disappearance of Roe c. Wade, but we know that the dramas will multiply, in the future, from one end of the country to the other. And that it is the less fortunate women, once again, who will suffer the most.
We can also expect other rights hard-won over the past few decades to come under immediate attack from the religious right and its Republican allies. With renewed enthusiasm.
We can all the less doubt that one of the most conservative judges of the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, suggests it in an argument that accompanies the decision rendered on Friday.
This judge even names certain decisions which, according to him, should be reviewed because they are based on the right to privacy, cited in 1973 to legalize the right to abortion from one end of the country to the other. He talks about verdicts on same-sex marriage and sexual relations, as well as the right to contraception.
In short, the quashing of Roe v. Wade is an earthquake, the damage will be extensive and there will be no shortage of aftershocks. Some of them could even affect rights other than abortion.
And it is an earthquake that must be seen, in countries that enjoy crucial rights such as abortion, as a warning.
We have tended to forget, in recent decades, how rights and freedoms should never be taken for granted.
Moreover, in this era where voter turnout is plummeting in many Western democracies, it is good to remember how elections have consequences. The time travel imposed on American women, a legacy of the Trump era, is a cruel reminder of this.