I have an idea that works on the Judicial Branch. Unfortunately, it's a little more expensive, but I'm doing it. Why not you?
This is the idea:
Send a specific book to Chief Justice Roberts (with an accompanying explanation letter, or course). It's Dispelling the Myths of Abortion History by Joseph Dellapenna. (BTW, I have no connection with the author, publisher, or any book seller. I used this book when I visited my senator to discuss FOCA (both my senators (MD) co-sponsored FOCA).)
Below, I'll list the dispelled myths and write a little about why it's so important for the Supreme Court to read this book.
The myths:
(1) that abortion was always a common practice in human history; (2) that voluntary early abortions were not crimes until the nineteenth century; (3) that the nineteenth-century abortion statutes were designed to protect the life of the mother rather the life of the child; and (4) that the statutes were enacted through a conspiracy of men to accomplish several nefarious purposes—to subordinate women, to eliminate competition from women health-care workers with male physicians, and to ensure adequate birth rates among white, Protestant women to prevent “race suicide.”
Why dispelling the myths are so important, in my understanding:
In Roe v. Wade (1973), it was found that “the restrictive criminal abortion laws in effect in a majority of the States today are of relatively recent vintage.” This was the initial premise that set the stage for the Roe conclusion (not that abortion was a right, but that one has a right to privacy to make such a personal decision, including with abortion; the preceding link is an interview with Mary Ann Glendon which explains the lack of the "abortion right" in Roe).
By bringing serious doubt to this premise which started the ball rolling for all the federal court cases, the court will be able to, or even must, revisit the original precedent in Roe under the principle of stare decisis.
From the book:
“It is time that the Court took seriously its own premise that the constitutional status of a claimed right to abort is to be tested against history and traditions of this nation. The accumulated wisdom relating to abortion teaches us that the prohibition of abortion was always viewed as the protection of emerging, yet real, human life —a concern only made more certain by the continual growth of medical knowledge of gestation during the last two centuries.” (p. 1084)
If Chief Justice Roberts received even a few dozen of these books, imagine how his curiosity would compel him to open and even consider reviewing an abortion case with this book in mind.
I wonder if it's possible. I pray that it is.
(tips: buy it used, send by USPS media mail)
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