There is certainly a lot of blame to go around for the recent Supreme Court decision upholding a ban on so-called partial birth abortions, a case which further chips away at the right to choose, and sets the stage for a possible reversal of Roe. But if we really want to identify the culprits we need look no further than the Democratic Party, and in particular Democrats in the US Senate.
It was after all, Senate Democrats whose votes approved Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito. Each of these men were known quantities: hard core, anti-feminist conservatives. Everyone knew that they opposed a woman’s right to choose. But in each instance, Democrats in the Senate allowed these individuals to obtain a seat on the Supreme Court, the ultimate arbiter of which individual rights the Constitution protects, and which rights it does not.
Clarence Thomas had a history of sexual harassment. Furthermore, at the hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, his opposition to abortion rights was exposed, when it was revealed that Thomas, in a speech he made while head of the Reagan administration’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, had praised an essay which argued that a fetus possessed an “inalienable right to life,” a position in direct conflict with the decision in Roe v. Wade. Despite all this, eleven Democrats in the Senate voted to confirm his appointment to the Supreme Court, which passed by the slimmest of margins, 52-48. Not one Democrat chose to filibuster his appointment, nor was his nomination killed in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Scalia’s open hostility to decisions which interpreted the Constitution as a living document, one in which the the rights of individuals could be expanded in cases such as Brown v. Board of Education and Roe v.Wade, was well known at the time Reagan nominated him. Nonetheless, he was approved by a vote of 98-0 in the Senate. In other words, not one Democrat opposed his nomination. Not even Ted Kennedy, for chrissakes!
John Roberts made the following statements at his confirmation hearings regarding his prior writings opposing women’s rights and the right of privacy:
In a day of sometimes testy exchanges with senators, Roberts distanced himself repeatedly from his conservative writings as a young legal adviser to President Ronald Reagan, including a memo in which he had disparaged privacy as “amorphous” and a “so-called right” not spelled out in the Constitution. […]
“Senator, I was a staff lawyer; I didn’t have a position,” Roberts said in a typical exchange, when asked about a memo from the early 1980s advocating a policy that would have allowed colleges to receive federal funds even if some of their programs discriminated against women. […]
Roberts … during the 1980s signed a memo saying that Roe was “wrongly decided” and should be overturned.
Nevertheless, his appointment to serve on the Court was confirmed by a Senate vote in which 22 Democrats joined their Republican colleagues.
When Sandra Day O’Connor resigned, and Alito was nominated we had an entire series of diaries here at Booman (the 12 Days For Justice) that detailed his misanthropic attitude toward women’s rights. As a appeals court judge he had argued unsuccessfully for a law requiring a married woman to notify her husband before obtaining an abortion. Here’s Connecticut Man’s Diary detailing Alito’s opposition to Roe v. Wade from his days as a government attorney in the Reagan Administration’s Solicitor General’s Office:
In a 1985 memo Alito had advised the Reagan Administration that it should attempt to undermine Roe v. Wade. Alito urged the administration to file a friend-of-the-court brief in Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and argued that this brief could promote “the goals of bringing about the eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade, and in the meantime, of mitigating its effects.”
Yet, despite this fact, four Democratic Senators voted for his appointment, which was approved by the entire Senate by a vote of only 58-42. More devastating, not one Democrat attempted to filibuster the vote on his appointment to the Court, despite the fact that there would not have been enough votes to break the filibuster.
I imagine there are numerous reasons why Senate Democrats have failed to protect one of the most important rights that women in America have, the right to choose whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term. You could blame it on fear of an increasingly hostile media environment, or the misguided belief that the doctrine of stare decisis would prevent even outspoken opponents of abortion on the Court from overruling Roe v. Wade. You can palm it off on political calculations that supporting abortion was not a winning argument for Democrats in many states.
But the truth is that the Democratic Party, as a whole, simply didn’t care enough about the single most significant issue for women in this country. The Democratic party has abandoned women on this issue. Progressive voices who support the right to choose have been shouted down or marginalized. As the Democrats attempted to move to an ever more mythical center in a futile attempt to win elections, they lost their way, and abandoned the progressive ideals which once made them the dominant political power for much of the 20th Century.
Thus, if you are looking for someone to blame for the recent Supreme Court decision look no further than the party which was supposed to advocate for, and protect, individual rights in general, and the rights of women, in particular: the Democrats.
