Tag Archives: Roe v. Wade

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Pro-life, pro-choice … or both?

Occasionally I have to grapple with my position on abortion. Am I pro-choice? Am I pro-life? Truly, this issue causes me some grief. To alleviate that grief, I have determined I am both.

I now shall explain myself.

If a woman were to ask me for advice on whether to abort a pregnancy, I could not counsel her to do so. Therefore, that resistance to pro-abortion counseling makes me — in my view — pro-life on the issue.

However, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that strips the court’s Roe v. Wade ruling of its power spurs another emotion within. You see, I also believe that government should not govern how women can manage their own reproductive process. That is not a governmental call. Such heart-wrenching decisions belong only to the woman, her partner, her physician, her spiritual leader and, yes, the god she worships.

I have thought about a gentleman with whom I attended church in Amarillo. His name is Doug and he once told a crowd of fellow churchgoers in a voice loud enough for many of us to hear that he was both a “creationist and one who believes in evolution.”

I learned then that Doug, a fellow who is quite a bit older than I am (which is really saying something), takes the same expansive view of Scripture that I do. We believe that the biblical version of “six days” worth of work creating the universe doesn’t mean the same six calendar days we use to measure that length of time.

So it can be with abortion. I see myself as both pro-life and pro-choice on an issue that when all is said about it really is none of my business.

As a 70-something-year-old man I never have had to make that choice for myself, nor will ever have to make it for as long as I walk this good Earth. Nor do I ever expect a woman to ask me whether she should make that choice for herself.

That suits me fine, too … because I never could say “yes” for any woman to commit such an agonizing act.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

Contraception is alive, but struggling

The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a bill that allows Americans to take measures to avoid pregnancy when they engage in intimate activity.

Sounds, well, rather normal, right? Not if you’re a Texas Republican member of Congress. You see, all GOP House members from Texas voted against this modern, common-sense, rational bill. That means my congressman, Van Taylor of Plano, has something against allowing his constituents to use contraceptives during sex.

What the hell?

Someone has to explain to me the reasons behind the partisan resistance to this measure.

GOP Texans in Congress vote against bill to protect right to contraception | The Texas Tribune

It appears to be some additional blowback to the Supreme Court decision to overturn the law that made abortion legal. Justice Clarence Thomas — the right-wing king of the high court — let it be known that the SCOTUS might next take aim at same-sex marriage and, yes, allowing contraception.

Good grief!

The 50-50 U.S. Senate isn’t likely to follow the House’s lead, given that the GOP side of the divide is wedded to this idiocy that contraception is some sort of Satanic mischief.

Well, it’s as clear as deep blue sky that the Texas Republican congressional delegation has swallowed the swill that now governs GOP policy these days.

They sicken me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

local news

End of Roe brings new idiocy

Idiocy can present itself in sometimes surprising forms, such as when a pregnant woman drives her vehicle in a “high-occupancy vehicle” lane, asserting that the baby in her womb is a “second person” in the vehicle.

Therefore, she argues, she is entitled to drive in the HOV lane.

Nonsense. Bullsh**. Horse pucky.

We’re getting some of that idiocy these days in Texas as individuals are reacting to the overturning of the Roe v. Wade abortion decision. A woman who is about to give birth to a child decided the other day to flout a rule requiring two people or more are allowed to ride in an HOV vehicle.

This is an example of political grandstanding run amok. It’s nothing more than a stunt that — and this is weird — could eventually find its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

I shudder to think what this court, comprising a 6-3 super conservative right-wing majority, would do with this form of idiocy.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

medical news

Imagine such demagoguery

“Imagine being upset that babies will live.”

So it went this morning as I came across this social media post from someone I’ve known — admittedly not well — for the past quarter century.

He is applauding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion. Yes, we know it as Roe v. Wade.

My friend’s social media message, of course, follows the demagogue’s strategy in arguing his point.

To suggest that those of us who are pro-choice on abortion are “upset that babies will live” is a disgraceful attempt at demonization. What upsets me about the SCOTUS ruling has nothing to do with whether “babies will live.” It is that the ruling deprives women of the opportunity to make this most difficult decision on their own.

I maintain the right to be both pro-life and pro-choice. I could never advise a woman to get an abortion; that is not my call. It is hers alone! Nor could I ever endorse a government policy that dictates to a woman how she must handle a decision that is best left to her conscience.

But … all of this is part of today’s toxic climate.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

Why omit this one, Mr. Justice?

It wasn’t lost on many folks that U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas omitted a legal precedent when he signaled which others might become vulnerable in future SCOTUS rulings.

The court knocked Roe v. Wade — the landmark ruling that legalized abortion — down and out. Thomas then noted that in the future, the court could take on same-sex marriage and contraception, two other provisions protected by constitutional “rights of privacy” provisions.

But … wait! What about interracial marriage?

Oh, yeah. Thomas, one of two blacks to serve on the court, is married to a white woman … and a controversial white woman at that! Ginni Thomas has been rabble-rousing like the dickens over Joe Biden’s 2020 election as president.

The court’s famous Loving ruling in 1967 legalized interracial marriage. It’s difficult for many of us to understand why it was ever illegal for people of different races to marry one another, but it was.

Is that going to be part of the court’s future?

Bwahahahaha!

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

SCOTUS has changed, not Roe

Leave it to a lame-duck U.S. Supreme Court justice to put a monumental ruling in fascinating perspective.

Stephen Breyer is about to retire from the nation’s top court. He cast a dissenting vote in the decision to toss aside 50 years of “settled law” by overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that made abortion legal.

Previous Supreme Court decisions had upheld Roe v. Wade in earlier challenges. The court would rule that the law was established and that, by golly, the Constitution did guarantee a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.

Not this court. Not this time.

It was Justice Breyer who noted in his dissent that Roe had withstood challenges because it remained the same. The only thing that changed, he wrote, “is this court.”

So it is that Supreme Court, with his conservative supermajority, has decided to enact an activist agenda by ruling that a half-century of “settled law” had been decided wrongly.

Pitiful.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

SCOTUS credibility at issue

The U.S. Supreme Court has a credibility problem. It’s serious, I’m telling you.

It ruled in just the span of a few days that New York does not have the authority as a state to govern concealed handgun carry and then decided that states must decide whether women can obtain a legal abortion.

Two justices — Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — reportedly told Sen. Susan Collins that Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion ruling that the court has just tossed aside, was “settled law” and that they wouldn’t trifle with it. Well, they damn sure did.

“This decision is inconsistent with what Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in their testimony and their meetings with me, where they both were insistent on the importance of supporting long-standing precedents,” Collins wrote.

This calls into question whether the court is as independent and impartial as the founders envisioned when they created the federal judiciary.

Having said all this, I stand by my refusal to endorse the notion of expanding the court’s number from nine to whatever progressives want to install.

What has to happen is that American voters need to decide whether the Supreme Court’s current makeup is reason to vote for members of Congress and for presidents who will honor the rule of the majority.

Donald Trump vowed to nominate justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. He made the pledge while running for president in 2016. Yes, he established the proverbial “litmus test” for judicial candidates to pass. He said so reportedly knowing that most Americans favored keeping Roe on the books. They, too, understood the meaning of “settled law” and wanted to give women the right to choose whether to take a pregnancy to full term.

The high court has thrown all of that aside with its Roe ruling. Moreover, it has spoken out of both sides of its collective mouth by declaring that states could decide whether to allow abortion but that they had no authority to decide how to govern firearm ownership.

Credibility? It’s missing from the Supreme Court.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

SCOTUS shows its consequence

There can be no greater example of electoral consequence than the decision delivered this week by the U.S. Supreme Court that overturns Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion in the United States.

Ponder this for a moment:

Justice Clarence Thomas is the court’s senior member, serving on the high court since 1991; the man who selected him, President George H.W. Bush, left office in 1993. Justice Samuel Alito joined the court in 2006; the president who nominated him, George W. Bush, left office in 2009. Chief Justice John Roberts took his post in 2005 after being nominated by President George W. Bush.

Those three conservative justices have stayed far beyond the terms of their political sponsors. The same likely will hold true for three more judicial conservatives, Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, all of whom were nominated by Donald J. Trump.

Remember, too, that Trump declared while running for office in 2016 that he would find “two or three” justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. He did … and they did. They, too, are likely to remain in office many decades after Trump leaves the scene.

Justice Stephen Breyer is retiring and will be replaced by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s lone selection (so far!) to the nation’s highest court.

Yes, elections have consequences. I now shall assert that the next president election must be determined at least partly by how voters want their Supreme Court to function well into the future.

Do we really want a SCOTUS making far-reaching decisions based on justices’ own religious bias?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

‘Representative democracy’ takes a hit

I need to stipulate something up front that shouldn’t need to be stated, which is that we all live in what we call a “representative democracy.”

What does that mean? To me it means that the men and women who serve in our nation’s public offices need to represent the will of the people they govern.

OK, are we clear on that? Good! Then consider this:

Every reputable public opinion poll taken reveals that a substantial majority of Americans favor maintaining abortion rights for women. Gallup, Harris, Quinnipiac, Roper, Ipsos — all of ’em — tell us that most Americans want women to have the right to govern their own bodies.

The U.S. Supreme Court, though, today said the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. The ruling comes as the court has struck down the Roe v. Wade landmark ruling that stood as settled law since it was announced in January 1973. Women no longer are able to obtain an abortion.

Most Americans believe in providing abortion rights for women. A minority in Congress and in our legislatures believe something else.

Where I come from, when the minority rules supersede the beliefs of the majority, we call that “governing by tyrannical means.”

Is that what we are becoming?

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news

SCOTUS might just be getting warmed up

The U.S. Supreme Court is feeling its Wheaties today after handing down a ruling that effectively ends legalized abortion in the United States of America.

It’s a dark day in American juris prudence, at least as I see it.

But … here’s some real bad news: The nation’s highest court now could be feeling so emboldened that it will take dead aim on such constitutional guarantees as the right to marry someone of the same gender as you.

Let’s ponder that for a brief moment.

Texas once had a law on the books that was called colloquially the “anti-sodomy law.” It banned same-sex marriage. I have no need to explain the origin of the “anti-sodomy law” description.

Then the Supreme Court, in a stunning decision just a few years ago, declared that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment applied to same-sex couples as well as straight couples, that everyone in this country is entitled to “equal protection under the law.” The ruling was hailed as huge step toward recognizing gay marriage as legal.

It has now been established as “settled law.”

Or … is it?

The court might believe it is ready to impose its own form of morality on a nation well could have an entirely different view. The gay marriage ruling has been essentially hailed as a victory for inclusion of all Americans under a constitutional clause that many had believed had excluded them from its protection.

Is the Supreme Court really prepared to walk down that path, just as it has decided that Roe v. Wade, the decision that had been settled law for 50 years, now no longer is valid?

Folks, we well might have a U.S. Supreme Court that is preparing to run amok.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com