One year after the Dobbs decision, the gaslighting in that disgraceful opinion is more clear than ever.
As they struck down the Constitutional right that had been in place for generations, the majority waxed on that the decision over abortion access would now lay with the “citizens” and “people” of states to determine.
But as they wrote those very words, they knew full well the decision wouldn’t go back to the “citizens” through some democratic process….but to extremists in gerrymandered statehouses, who are sealed off from “the citizens” and therefore able to advance agendas that do NOT represent those citizens.
And how can I claim they knew this as they wrote those words?
Because in an opinion in 2019 called Rucho, this same majority wrote that intense partisan gerrymandering “leads to results that reasonably seem unjust” and is “incompatible with democratic principles.” (No, they did nothing to solve the problem in that case, but they showed that they perfectly understand the problem).
Which means they knew that their “back to the citizens to decide” narrative in Dobbs was false.
And now, one year later, wouldn’t you know it?
The difference between states that have banned abortion (usually with no exceptions) and those that haven’t has had nothing to do with the “citizens” (who support the right to choose from Ohio to Texas to Kansas), and everything to do with which states are gerrymandered enough to protect toxic extremism. Those gerrymandered states are the ones that have banned abortion—usually with no exceptions.
THAT is the real red state/blue state divide, as the American people across the states consistently support abortion access and soundly reject bans w no exceptions. And on the rare occasion that the people have weighed in directly, they’ve protected abortion access, most famously in Kansas.
And now, knowing full well where the people stand, the politicians in these states so FEAR the citizens actually weighing in (the very thing Dobbs suggested should happen), they’re doing all they can to keep that from taking place.
In Ohio, they’re literally forcing an illegal election this August to block the majority will of Ohio citizens from succeeding in November. They DON’T want the Dobbs vision of the “citizens” weighing in to happen, just as the Dobbs majority knew those words were a lie as they wrote them.
This opinion was a politicized and disingenuous disgrace, as the majority eliminated a right from Constitutional protection, threw it into the hands of rigged and extremist politicians to decide against the will of their citizens, and then openly lied to America that this is what they were doing.
Everything that’s happened in the last year has only made this all more clear.
What do we do?
Keep fighting, starting at the state level, where these politicians will only grow more extreme until we take them on directly.
And in Ohio, help us crush Issue 1 in August.
Dobbs, One Year Later