Why is her right to life not protected?
Because lefties like to debate … and like to be right … and sometimes enjoy browbeating opponents into submission with their superior command of the facts, we sometimes waste time doing that instead of learning something from dialogue. We debate the question presented instead of addressing an oblique one that is more illuminating.
Recent reading on Christian nationalism debunks the “Christian nation” myth and provides a surfeit of ammunition for winning any number of debates on the matter. From the Ten Commandments to where constitutional principles conflict with biblical ones, “The Founding Myth” by Andrew L. Seidel provides a stockpile.
But rather than debating the ins and outs of “Was the United States founded on Christian principles?” a more penetrating question to ask advocates of that proposition is “Why is that so important to you?” Or, “What’s in it for you?”
It’s like asking a guy in a red, “Make America Great Again” hat, “When was it great before?” Or, “What does great again look like to you?”
Never question people’s motives is one of those bits of debate advice tossed off as received wisdom. But mostly it’s meant to avoid personalizing the argument and raising opponents’ defenses (and ire). I say, make people question their own.
In Oklahoma, for example.
Slate senior writer Christina Cauterucci addresses a dissenting opinion in a 5-4 Oklahoma Supreme Court ruling this week. The majority found that the state’s abortion ban “must include an exception for cases in which there is ‘a reasonable degree of medical certainty or probability’ that a pregnancy would endanger a patient’s life, whether due to a current medical condition or to one that would likely arise later in the pregnancy.” The prior standard was that the woman’s life must be “in actual and present danger.”
It was the dissenting opinion from four Republican judges that Cauterucci finds chilling. Whether or not the state could require a woman to risk her life for a nonviable fetus (or a dead one?) was none of their business, nor is protecting her right to life (emphasis mine):
“The Oklahoma Constitution, as currently worded, does no expressed or hiddent [sic] establish a fundamental abortion right under any circumstance. Any change to that status quo must come from the people or their elected representatives,” writes Chief Justice M. John Kane IV in his dissent.
On the surface, such a proclamation seems sensible and straightforward. But in the context of an abortion ban exception to preserve a patient’s life, Kane’s argument takes on a new tenor. If a patient does not have the right to abortion under any circumstance, unless the privilege is granted to her by the people and their legislators, the people and their legislators could legally force her to die.
If Kane had his way, that possibility would remain on the table. “The unborn have no voice, say, or consideration in the opinion of the majority,” he writes, urging Oklahoma to commence “the thorny medical, philosophical, and practical debate of balancing the developing life of the unborn against the life of the mother.” But, he cautioned, there is no right to any abortion—even a lifesaving one—“to consider as part of that dialogue.”
The birthing vessel’s fate is up for a majority vote in states where the majority is predictably conservative. Except in Kansas, of course.
Justice Dana Kuehn concurs in her dissent that a woman’s right to life is a legislative matter: “The Legislature and people of Oklahoma have had over a century to preserve this exception as a Constitutional right. They have not done so.”
Cauterucci summarizes caustically, “If Oklahomans want to sentence pregnant women to death, let them go ahead and do it.” She argues that the state’s constitution protects women’s rights under a provision reading, “All persons have the inherent right to life.”
But the dissenting justices wring their hands over that provision. Justice Richard Darby chastises the majority for failing to discuss “any rights as they may apply to the unborn child” or “any interest of the state.” (Emphasis his.) “To be clear,” he writes, “the State’s interest is in protecting the life of the unborn child.” In Darby’s society, the state has no position on the life or death of the woman.
Getting back to biblical principles, the patriarchal nature of biblical society is a God-ordained given. Unchanging and unchangeable. Set in stone, literally, Seidel points out. The U.S. Constitution for all its flaws allows for modification and for evolving morals. If there is any biblical principle found in the founding, it is slavery. If Christian nationalists care to wear that proudly today, let them try (and some might). Women were little better than property in biblical times and got short shrift from the framers. But the Constitution has evolved as society has. In fits and starts, yes, but nevertheless.
There is great overlap between Americans who advocate for “great again” and Christian evangelicals and Republicans. The job of justices is to rule on matters of law and to defend basic rights from legislative harm. Rather than debate the legal merits of the minority opinion, one might ask dissenters why the state they envision has “interest is in protecting the life of the unborn child” but not the woman carrying a threatened pregnancy. What vision of America and the principles on which it was founded informs that opinion? Also, “Why is that so important to you?”
Make them question their motives.