More Than A Magazine, A Movement
In Moore v. Harper, being argued at the Supreme Court on Thursday, the justices will decide whether the North Carolina Supreme Court has the power to strike down the legislature’s illegally gerrymandered congressional map for violating the North Carolina Constitution.
What’s the case all about? Why did the Court take it in the first place? And what is the dubious ‘independent state legislature theory’?
In 2014, Justice Samuel Alito allegedly leaked the impending decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby to anti-choice lobbyists weeks before the Court publicly issued it. This revelation suggests something more sinister: Some of the justices are acting in concert with conservative movement leaders, leaking opinions, signaling outcomes, and backchanneling. This is disturbing and devastating. The rule of law cannot survive if the judiciary ceases to be independent.
On Tuesday night, the U.S. Senate passed the Respect for Marriage Act, which protects same-sex and interracial marriages. In a statement, President Biden said the vote reaffirmed “a fundamental truth: Love is love, and Americans should have the right to marry the person they love.”
RMA needed just 60 votes—including 10 Republican votes—to break a filibuster and pass. In the end, RMA, which was led by Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), passed by a vote of 61 to 36, with 12 Republicans voting with their Democratic colleagues.
Thirty-six Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, voted against the bill—standing in stark contrast to the rest of the United States: 71 percent of Americans say they support legal same-sex marriage.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in a case, challenging the constitutionality of the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).
The lead plaintiffs, the Brackeens, are a well-to-do white, evangelical Texan couple, who are seeking to adopt a Navaho girl against the wishes of her relatives, who want to adopt her themselves. Among other arguments, the Brackeens allege reverse racism—that the law discriminates against them based on their race in violation of the equality guarantees of the U.S. Constitution.
But this is just the most recent chapter in a long history of white people taking Native children from their parents, tribes and cultures.
Anti-abortion advocates have filed a federal lawsuit challenging FDA approval of the medication mifepristone. It seeks to revive the 1873 Comstock Law—named after the zealous anti-vice crusader Anthony Comstock—to ban the medication now used for over half of abortions in the United States.
“When they look at the courts, they think, ‘Why wouldn’t the courts be friendly to us even if we are making new things up?’ The Supreme Court just overturned a 50-year precedent that took away half the population’s fundamental right to control their bodies, so why wouldn’t they try?”
Concern about future access to contraceptives has spiked since Roe was overturned. Concerns about access are understandable, given state legislators have strategically perpetuated misinformation as part of efforts targeting access to contraception.
In response, we must call on elected officials to support urgently-needed legislation, such as the Right to Contraception Act, which seeks to protect the right of individuals to use birth control and the right of physicians and other healthcare professionals to provide this basic essential care.
Despite the claims of Justice Alito and the Supreme Court’s majority, abortion has a deeply rooted legacy in American law and tradition.
Over the next year, at least 7,000 U.S. teenagers will likely be forced into parenthood because they were not able to obtain a desired legal abortion
In Texas, a six-week abortion ban means women experiencing miscarriage are denied care until they develop sepsis or forced to carry a dead fetus for weeks. In Wisconsin, one expecting mother bled for 10 days from an incomplete miscarriage doctors were barred from removing. Earlier this month, a Missouri woman suffering a life-threatening miscarriage couldn’t receive care under the state ban. These accounts—once mere warnings of what could happen in a post-Roe America—are now reality for millions of people across the country.
This November, voters are calling the shots. The organizing led by Black women in states like Michigan and Kentucky makes it clear that we as voters are the face of hope in our country—not lawmakers or the elite few.
