by Diane Robertson
This week has been a blow to Constitutional rights as the Supreme Court has handed out rulings on several cases. The first, second, and tenth amendment have all been ignored, as justices tossed aside the documents they pledged to uphold in favor of their own political leanings. This article will focus on the cases that laid aside the 1st and 10th amendments as found in the Bill of Rights.
On Monday, the Court struck down the 2013 Texas abortion law which required abortionists to have admitting rights to a local hospital and abortion clinics to meet the same standards required for other daytime surgical facilities in the state. Constitutionally, abortion is not an issue that should be decided by the federal government. The constitution says nothing about health, healthcare, women’s health, reproduction rights, or abortion. Instead the tenth amendment to the Constitution states that, “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” But in 1973, the Supreme Court made up a fake “constitutional right” to abortion.
The majority ruled that the 2013 Texas law places an undue burden on women’s reproductive rights. In other words, the Court argued that the fake “constitutional right” to abortion supersedes any need for women to have a clean facility with regulations in place to assist in case of an emergency resulting from an abortion.
The problem with this ruling is that not a single woman took the law to court. There was not a woman found in Texas that thought the law burdened her right to an abortion enough to seek legal defense. In fact, the law was challenged by Whole Women’s Health, an abortion provider. If the Majority of Supreme Court justices were honest, they would be saying that the Texas law placed an “undue” burden on an abortion doctor’s right to perform abortions in any condition they deem fit.
The media may say this ruling is a victory for women, but it was not women that sought the victory. It was abortionists—making the ruling a victory for abortion doctors.
In a dissenting opinion Justice Clarence Thomas said that the “decision exemplifies the Court’s troubling tendency ‘to bend the rules when any effort to limit abortion, or even to speak in opposition to abortion, is at issue.’”
On Tuesday, the Court declined to hear a religious liberty case challenging a Washington State law that makes it illegal for pharmacies to refuse to dispense medications purely for religious reasons, allowing the state to enforce the law.
In 2007, the state of Washington made a law that all pharmacies must dispense the morning-after and week-after abortion pills if the pharmacy was not stocking them due to religions reasons. The law still allowed pharmacies to choose which drugs to stock for reasons of business or convenience.
The law came about when abortion rights activists started harassing the Storman family, owners and operators of Ralph’s and Bayview Thriftways in Olympia, Washington. Pro-abortion activists, including Planned Parenthood, began to “test-shop” Ralph’s in 2006. They would ask for Plan B and then file complaints with the state when referred to nearby pharmacies. The groups also began protesting the store, blocking entrances, disturbing traffic, creating a boycott, and picketing. The Governor of Washington joined the boycott and under pressure the regulation was made that pharmacies would be required to stock drugs that went against the pharmacy owner’s religious convictions.
The Supreme Court should have taken the case because the issue at stake is a federal issue specifically protected under the Constitution. The first amendment says, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The Washington State law allows pharmacies to choose which drugs to stock for business and convenience but not religious reasons thereby prohibiting the free exercise of religion.
Justices Alito, Roberts, and Clarence would have heard the case. In their dissent they declared that, “This case is an ominous sign. At issue are Washington State regulations that are likely to make a pharmacist unemployable if he or she objects on religious grounds to dispensing certain prescription medications. There are strong reasons to doubt whether the regulations were adopted for—or that they actually serve—any legitimate purpose. And there is much evidence that the impetus for the adoption of the regulations was hostility to pharmacists whose religious beliefs regarding abortion and contraception are out of step with prevailing opinion in the State.
The majority of the Supreme Court justices made it clear that the Constitution is not as important when deciding on a case as is their personal political leanings, particularly concerning abortion.