Bye bye freedom

[kathygnome]

Justice O'Connor resigned. That eliminates Roe v. Wade, possibly birth control in general, and a host of other things.

We are fucked.

Comments

[kathygnome.livejournal.com]

You might want to look at all the focus on allowing pharmacists to refuse to dispense birth control pills as a matter of conscience. The religious far right is repainting hormonal birth control as a form of abortion.

[lassiter.livejournal.com]

There's a fair difference of degree between allowing a pharmacist to decline to dispense the "morning-after pill" (the only specific contraceptive I've seen the religious right targeting) and a state or federal government actually banning hormonal birth control in general.

Not that I agree with the former case in any way - any pharmacist who feels he can't perform hir duties for religious reasons should quit and find another job. Allowing this type of precedent could lead to all sorts of mischief. "I can't come to work on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays as a matter of conscience because my Guru has strictly forbidden it!" I suspect the more moderate pro-commerce "business Republicans" are not gonna like what their religious nutball brethren are pushing here.

I guess my overall point is that we should all focus on the actual issues before us (of which abortion and contraception are two, along with many other civil liberties threats) and organize to fight and resist. But let's not despair, exaggerate or panic or feel that it's too late and the battles are already lost. Right now, I think we all should write letters and emails and try and hold the Senate Democrats' feet to the fire, since they have shown way too much willingness to capitulate to Bush on his appointments. John Kerry even said before the election that he would have "no objection" to considering appointing an overtly anti-choice justice to the Supreme Court, and Kerry not only supported Scalia's appointment, but made a speech on the Senate floor warmly endorsing his "good friend." This is the danger we're up against - not that Bush will do what Bush does, but that the so-called "opposition" will blindly sell the rest of us out yet again. If the Senate Dems hadn't let Scalia sail through 99-1, we might not be in such a crisis over O'Connor's resignation right now.

[kathygnome.livejournal.com]

[quote]There's a fair difference of degree between allowing a pharmacist to decline to dispense the "morning-after pill" (the only specific contraceptive I've seen the religious right targeting) and a state or federal government actually banning hormonal birth control in general.[/quote]

The religious right is targeting all forms of birth control pills. And they are promoting "conscience" bills that not only allow pharmacists to not dispense BCP without charges of derelecting their duty as pharmacists, but in some states, there are bills to prevent firing based on a refusal to dispense.

Emergency contraception is just a publicity wedge because they can dupe people into thinking it's RU486.

They can't really do more than that now because of Grisold. But once Roe goes, Griswold is pretty much dead because it relies on the exact same legal precedent.