Dred Scott rolls over in his grave
Published by michael October 9th, 2004 in politicsIt bears repeating, in case like most Americans, you misunderstood the code-speak reference to Dred Scott. It turns out that Bush was not talking about slavery, but rather about abortion!
Paperwight’s smart and timely post uncovers something too many will never put together or uncover. He translates the fundamentalist codified reference into plain speech:
If elected to another term, I promise that I will nominate Supreme Court Justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade.
You would think he could be a little more honest about what the heck he was alluding to, it’s a little pretentious and underhanded to try and sneak code-speak past the bulk of your audience. Paperwight points out that, “Bush couldn’t say that in plain language, because it would freak out every moderate swing voter in the country, but he can say it in code, to make sure that his base will turn out for him.” As proof, he offers a simple Google search.
Phew. Lots of people, myself included, simply thought the President was re-writing history again.
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I know next to nothing about Dred Scott, but anyone who remembers it from grade-school history should know that “the constitutionality of slavery” was not a point at issue.
So I am reading Paperwight’s blog entry on the right-wing analogy between Dred Scott v. Sandford and Roe v. Wade, and I’m trying to break it down. I’ve gone to his link where Casey, PA governor, gives a pro-life speech, and I’m investigating in hopes of illuminating exactly what the connection is.
Dred Scott lost his case against the slavemaster’s brother-in-law Sandford (who “inherited” Scott when the original owner died) based on the idea that Sandford could not be denied his “property” without due process. If I follow the analogy, an unborn child is the “property” of a pregnant woman. The current legislation that allows abortion is likened to the former legislation that allowed slavery because it wrongly, in the pro-life opinion, places women in a position of authority over another person (their unborn child).
On the surface, I understand that right-wing politicians are trying to say Roe v. Wade, like the Dred Scott decision, was a mistake, that the Supreme Court can indeed make mistakes, and furthermore, that these mistakes can be reversed in later decisions. In their ideal world, we would overturn Roe v. Wade and this would be like ending slavery in so much as that decision flew in the face of an established precedent.
This opinion is so flawed I don’t even know where to begin. First of all, there is a gigantic difference between, on the one hand, enslaving a human being, purchasing him, abusing him, and considering him chattel and, on the other, becoming pregnant by mistake. Also, the pro-life faction also disregards the obvious problem of illegal abortion, which is far more dangerous for women and unborn children than the current standard. When pro-lifers discuss the rights of fetuses, they place themselves in the role of self-appointed guardian, and raise questions about the legislative power of men over women. The comparison of the male/female legislative power inequality to slavery is much more apt in my mind than that of abortion to slavery. This is just a totally convoluted, misguided comparison. I go along as far as agreeing that our legislative bodies can make mistakes, and no further. I will refrain from discussing just what mistakes those may be.
Even if it’s the lesser of two evils, I would prefer legal abortions to the back alley butcher jobs we endured only a few decades ago in the US, and to the unwanted births that lead to child abuse or abandoned babies. How about we start with health care that pays for proper birth control so we prevent unwanted pregnancies? Our soldiers in Iraq can’t even get that much from the government–God forbid they should get pregnant because of the army’s lack of adequate health care provision.
p.s. Turns out I’m a socialist too. Go figure.