{"id":1730,"date":"2005-07-23T17:00:53","date_gmt":"2005-07-24T00:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/07\/23\/it-would-be-more-democratic\/"},"modified":"2005-07-23T17:00:53","modified_gmt":"2005-07-24T00:00:53","slug":"it-would-be-more-democratic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=1730","title":{"rendered":"It would be more "democratic?""},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve already linked to a post of Amanda’s at Pandagon disdaining the “let Roe<\/em> go back to the State Legislatures” arguments. We all know what states such as California, New York, Alabama, Georgia, and my home state of Indiana (shudders) would choose to do with Roe<\/em> right off the bat. Constitutional protections for our basic civil rights ensures that they will exist even if they’re “unpopular” to a segment of the population, and secure them against impulsive politicians eager to create a bandwagon to gather more potential voters, and guard them against “in the heat of the moment” lawmaking on the floor of Congress (the Schiavo case and the Patriot Act comes to mind). How popular were Brown v. Board of Education<\/em> and the Voting Rights Act<\/em> with Southern Whites who were racist? How popular is flag burning, but the Constitution protects that anyway to prevent a slippery-slope that could lead to government sanctioned censorship–especially when it comes to criticizing politicians? Civil rights should not be based on convenience, a whim, or which politician is in the mood to deal with them. Via Feministe<\/strong><\/a>, I found this wonderful article by Katha Pollitt of the Nation<\/strong><\/a> who too is not persuaded by the “it’s more democratic” stanza at the core of the ‘let Roe<\/em> go back to the state’ argument.<\/p>\n

[…]Legislative control might be more “democratic”\u009d”\u201cif you believe that a state senator balancing women’s health against a highway for his district represents democracy. But would it be fair? The whole point about constitutional protection for rights is to guarantee them when they are unpopular”\u201cto shield them from majority prejudice, opportunistic politicians, the passions and pressures of the moment. Freedom of speech, assembly, worship and so on belong to us as individuals; our neighbors, our families and our legislators don’t get to vote on how we use these rights or whether we should have them in the first place. Alabamans may be largely antichoice, but what about the ones who aren’t? Or the ones who are but even so don’t want to die in childbirth, bear a hopelessly damaged baby or drop out of school at 15″\u201cor 25? If Roe goes, whoever has political power will determine the most basic, intimate, life-changing and life-threatening decision women”\u201cand only women”\u201cconfront. We will have a country in which the same legislature that can’t prevent some clod from burning a flag will be able to force a woman to bear a child under whatever circumstances it sees fit. It is hard to imagine how that woman would be a free or equal citizen of our constitutional republic.[…]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s hard to imagine because it’s true. Women won’t be free and equal citizens if Roe<\/em> goes, or even if Griswold<\/em> suffers the same fate. It would come down to how convenient<\/em> our right to autonomy would be in the eyes of the mostly male politicians who would decide this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve already linked to a post of Amanda’s at Pandagon disdaining the “let Roe go back to the State Legislatures” arguments. We all know what states such as California, New York, Alabama, Georgia, and my home state of Indiana (shudders) … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,27,111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion-reproductive-rights","category-elections-and-politics","category-supreme-court-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}