Dred Scott and abortion
Oct. 9th, 2004 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
avramOne of the more bizarre moments in last night’s debate was when Bush was asked if he had anyone in mind for appointing to the Supreme Court should the opportunity come up. He replied with this weird discourse about how he didn’t have anyone specific in mind, but he’d appoint a strict constructionist, the sort of person who’d disapprove of the Dred Scott decision.
All over America, liberals said “What the fuck? He’s gotta go back 150 years to find an example?” Dred Scott v Sandford, for who didn’t follow that Wikipedia link, was the 1856 case in which the US Supreme Court ruled that black people — even free blacks — were “beings of an inferior order”, were guaranteed no rights by the Constitution, and could never become citizens. (Here’s the full text in HTML, not annoying PDF.)
It turns out that at the same time, all over America, right-wingers were saying “Ah, he’ll appoint someone to overturn Roe v Wade!” It seems that abortion prohibitionists have been drawing parallels between the two decisions for a while now. They see a woman’s right over her own body (even at the expense of a fetus she’s carrying) as parallel to the slaveholder’s right to hold human beings as property.
Here, look at Bush’s actual words last night:
If you’ve been read enough abortion arguments, you can easily do the translation in your head: Another example would be Roe v Wade, which is where judges, years ago, said that the Constitution allowed abortion because of a right to privacy. The second paragraph doesn’t need changing at all.
(Thanks to the invaluable Kevin Drum for the initial link.)
All over America, liberals said “What the fuck? He’s gotta go back 150 years to find an example?” Dred Scott v Sandford, for who didn’t follow that Wikipedia link, was the 1856 case in which the US Supreme Court ruled that black people — even free blacks — were “beings of an inferior order”, were guaranteed no rights by the Constitution, and could never become citizens. (Here’s the full text in HTML, not annoying PDF.)
It turns out that at the same time, all over America, right-wingers were saying “Ah, he’ll appoint someone to overturn Roe v Wade!” It seems that abortion prohibitionists have been drawing parallels between the two decisions for a while now. They see a woman’s right over her own body (even at the expense of a fetus she’s carrying) as parallel to the slaveholder’s right to hold human beings as property.
Here, look at Bush’s actual words last night:
Another example would be the Dred Scott case, which is where judges, years ago, said that the Constitution allowed slavery because of personal property rights.
That’s a personal opinion. That’s not what the Constitution says. The Constitution of the United States says we’re all — you know, it doesn’t say that. It doesn’t speak to the equality of America.
If you’ve been read enough abortion arguments, you can easily do the translation in your head: Another example would be Roe v Wade, which is where judges, years ago, said that the Constitution allowed abortion because of a right to privacy. The second paragraph doesn’t need changing at all.
(Thanks to the invaluable Kevin Drum for the initial link.)