Conservatives in the US have had a triumphant week of rulings in their favour. This is also due to the staying power of a Christian lobbyist. And to Donald Trump. A glimmer of hope remains for the majority of the US population.
It was last Friday. The nationwide right to abortion no longer applies, the US states can now do what they want. After the Supreme Court’s highly controversial ruling, people took to the streets in various cities in the United States. There were injuries and the police arrested demonstrators. “The Supreme Court is at war with progressive America,” said a US columnist. The Supreme Court successfully fought the first battles in the interests of many conservatives.
With a week of landmark judgments, the Supreme Court unleashed sheer horror across much of the United States. First, on Tuesday, the judges relaxed the separation of church and state when they required the state of Maine to also fund private religious schools. On Thursday, they lifted New York State’s ban on carrying guns outside of your home. And then, finally, came the earthquake: the end of the nearly 50-year-old Roe vs. Wade precedent. It had practically guaranteed the right to abortion until the end of the 22nd week.
After many years of continuous legal fire against general abortion rights, the USA is entering a new era with the judgment in the case “Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization”; back to the past, although the population does not want to go there. A stable majority has been in favor of maintaining at least partial abortion rights for decades. In a poll last year, two-thirds voted in favour. After the ruling, 59 percent told CBS/Yougov they thought the decision was wrong. More than half called it a “step backwards for America”.
The bans, which are different in each state, raise an unknown number of legal ramifications and questions. Will a woman go to prison in the future if she loses her child, possibly together with her doctor? From what week is a fetus considered a person? Can he own or inherit money? Is smoking illegal during pregnancy? Excessive sport? Does murder have to be redefined legally? Could conservative-governed states possibly even conclude extradition agreements for pregnant women?
The court made its decision as it made it because it is currently conservative. Only three of the nine Supreme Court justices are still considered liberal, or to put it another way, progressive. That has a little to do with coincidence, but above all with the fact that the disproportionate power of the minority has a system, and there is a Christian pulling the strings who cleverly moves it. In addition, there is questionable loyalty to the constitution and money from dark channels.
First the coincidence. One judge had resigned, two had died. So President Donald Trump was able to nominate three new judges for life during his tenure, according to the taste of the conservative wing, which confirmed them in the Senate. But that’s where the coincidence ends, because the fact that Trump was in office is already a thorn in the side of critics. In 2016, a narrow minority of the votes was enough for him because the indirect electoral system distorts the majorities: rural states where the Republicans have many supporters are given an advantage.
When Trump sat in the White House, he proposed the three candidates to the Senate over his four-year term. The Republicans had a nominal majority there at the time – but represented a minority of the population here too, because the states each send two senators regardless of their population – and appointed the judges to office for life. The Democrats under President Joe Biden tried to legislate abortion rights, but the Republican senators blocked it. Critics call this systemic misrepresentation in US democracy “minority rule”.
Trump and the Republicans also had powerful help that had long been prepared. During the 2016 election campaign, the future president’s team published a list of lawyers as candidates for the post of judge. The list came from Leonard Leo. The Roman Catholic lawyer was Trump’s adviser and pulled the strings behind all the chief justices who came to the court under George W. Bush and Trump. He is also active in a myriad of religious advocacy groups and a senior member of the Federalist Society. Practicing Christians and Republicans have formed an alliance of interests since the early 1980s.
The full conservative majority for the end of universal abortion law was organized by Leo over decades of work. He had studied law at one of the elite US universities and founded the student arm of the Federalist Society there in 1989. He then moved to the organization’s headquarters and became an aide at an appeals court. It was also around this time that he befriended Clarence Thomas and helped him get confirmed by the Senate as Chief Justice. He repeated this successfully with John Roberts and Samuel Alito, under Trump with Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Everyone voted for the end of Roe vs. Wade.
The Federalist Society acts as the lobby spearhead of the so-called originalists for the most original interpretation of laws and, above all, the constitution. Current social developments are largely ignored. They install their own lawyers at different levels. With their help, Trump also replaced more than a quarter of all judges on the federal appeals courts below the Supreme Court during his presidency. Almost all of them were members of the Federalist Society.
Leo also has influence. The father of seven moves in a network of religious lobby groups that collect donations for their activities and bring them together in a targeted manner. One of the organizations is the largest donor to the “Republicans Attorneys General Association” (RAGA), which advocates for the election of Republican chief prosecutors at the state level. Since 2014, RAGA has received more than $17 million through this network alone, according to the New York Times. Other groups co-funded through Leo’s network then present these judges and prosecutors with possible legal justifications for rulings in key conservative cases. Most prominent example of this? The current abortion ruling.
The Mississippi Attorney General is Lynn Fitch. The Republican led the case that made Roe vs. Wade history. Fitch was supported by RAGA when she was elected in 2018; 18 Republican chief prosecutors from other states and 12 Republican governors campaigned for their success. As a result, Mississippi now prohibits abortion after the 15th week and even when the pregnancies follow rape and incest. Stricter laws came into force immediately in several states, and more are likely to follow. In Texas, for example, the abortion limit is six weeks; some don’t even know they’re pregnant.
Hundreds of anti-abortion laws have been passed in the US since 2011, but none of them have stood because of Roe v. Wade. It’s over. Americans expect to lose more of their personal rights. 57 percent of Americans believe that same-sex marriages will be restricted in the future. Almost as many, 55 percent, said so about contraceptive methods. In his view, Judge Thomas had asked his colleagues to reassess the relevant precedents, because the reasoning for this could be very similar. They are not mentioned in the constitution and, like the right to abortion, they are not “deeply rooted in this nation’s history and tradition”, as the reasoning for the judgment states.
The conservative camp at the Supreme Court is thus a fallen barrier to social change, which Leonard Leo and other Originalists had carefully positioned over many years. The consequences will shape the country for decades to come. Since the 1970s, the average tenure of a Chief Justice has been over a quarter of a century. In the coming years, the conservatives could even expand the barrier to a wall: If Trump stands up again as expected and actually returns to the White House in 2025, he could use a Republican-dominated Senate to elevate other judges from Leo’s list into office. The liberal Stephen Breyer is now 83 years old, his colleague Sonia Sotomayor 67 years.
The current situation is like a nightmare for the Democrats. You don’t have a majority in the Senate to pass a law. Biden’s poll low has stabilized. And the electoral prospects for the November congressional election were extremely bleak even before the verdict. Should a Republican-controlled Congress pass a legal ban on abortion in the coming year, the President could still veto the law and not sign it. But how much longer will Biden or any other Democrat be in the White House?
A glimmer of hope with which the Democrats are encouraging is the possible mobilizing power of the verdict. Because if the majority thinks it’s wrong, it can drive people to the polls in droves. “Congress can (…) pass legislation legalizing abortion. We need two more Democratic senators for that and we need to hold the House of Representatives,” tweeted David Plouffe, campaign manager for ex-President Barack Obama. But even if this were to succeed, the Democrats would have to pull together afterwards. The Christian conservatives, the Republicans and Trump have done it.
