Incredible but sad and horrible truth, women will no longer be able to use their bodies as they see fit, at least in half of the American states. This country prides itself on being among the democracies most vigorously protecting the rights of its citizens, but with an ultra-conservative majority well installed by Trump in the highest court in the land, women’s rights are at half mast. This is a shocking setback.
The decision was expected and did not surprise anyone, but it is no less catastrophic. As soon as the decision was handed down on Friday morning, anti-choice activists celebrated in jubilation outside the Supreme Court the end of the judgment Roe v. wade, while, in the pro-choice camp, we measured with horror the immediate consequences for the fundamental freedom of women to dispose of their bodies as they see fit: in at least half of the American states, it is understood that abortion will be limited or prohibited, since the judgment returns the legislative responsibility to them. States reacted immediately by brandishing legislation limiting or prohibiting access to abortion.
It’s a dark day. While progress has been noted all over the world with regard to women’s reproductive health, even as countries long led by very religious lobbies are gradually loosening their locks to give women back the choice that is theirs, one of the world’s greatest nations goes back 50 years. Democratic President Joe Biden watches helplessly as women’s rights crumble; he suffers with his people the legacy of his predecessor, Donald Trump, who sowed in the front row of the Supreme Court ultraconservatives whose ideologies could continue to demolish achievements.
Six justices — including the three appointed by former President Trump — agreed that the 1973 legal interpretation was “completely wrong.” “The power to regulate abortions has therefore returned to the people and their elected representatives,” writes the majority. The Supreme Court is demolishing years of bitter struggles to protect the right to abortion with impunity. Unfortunately, we know the dark consequences that will be written for women: clinics will close, citizens will have to travel thousands of kilometers and pay sums – which they will not have – to find a service, illegal and dangerous maneuvers s will operate underground. A real horror story.
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This judgment slashes rights, but it harbors another scandal, and that is that of not agreeing to the will of American citizens. According to a recent poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, 61% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or some situations; conversely, 37% believe it should be illegal in all or some situations. Citizens’ opinions vary depending on whether a few variables are changed, such as the number of weeks of pregnancy, for example. With this immense societal decline, the Supreme Court therefore takes issue with the will of the people.
Thursday, she had expressed another retrograde judgment and contrary to common sense, by invalidating a New York law regulating the bearing of arms, all in the heart of a political debate intended however to lead to the outcome contrary to the country scale. And this, again against the will of the majority of citizens, who want concrete actions to reduce the number of gunshot deaths. Six judges against three, the Court declared invalid a law which imposed limits on the carrying of a handgun in public space. This retrograde exit comes just weeks after the Uvalde and Buffalo killings. On June 21, Democratic and Republican senators had nevertheless given the signal for a possible great advance by proposing a bill, adopted on Friday, to better mark out the sale of arms.
Legislative, executive, judicial: three powers waltz in the United States in distinct cadences and against a background of schism between the camp of the Democrats and that of the Conservatives. The judiciary, led by a conservative fringe determined to cut back on progress, has just shown how far it can extend its arm, giving back to the States which follow its range the leisure to impose on their borders a law in conformity with their values.
These days, the commission of inquiry on January 6 allows us to examine the extent of the excesses orchestrated by Donald Trump: he invented a masquerade that looks like electoral fraud; he encouraged his supporters to storm the Capitol; he tried to subjugate the judiciary by wanting to force it to validate his lie. This casual and crass impunity is a very smelly legacy, the scent of which spreads over the country and weakens the rights of citizens.