A larger political agenda behind court decision on Roe

Published 1:30 am Friday, July 8, 2022

The Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision wasn’t to simply outlaw abortion. To understand what motivated that jury of jurists, it is necessary to examine the fabric of the partisan agenda that backs them up.

When partisan majorities of the Court or Congress consider big issues, they tag them with labels designed to sell their biases to the public. For example, 1963’s Clean Air Act, a bill intended to reduce atmospheric pollutants, was amended to give the nation’s major polluters a pass. Its label fails to match the product. Just so, Roe v. Wade was described by supporters as a “women’s rights issue,” while detractors used gerrymandered scripture to paint it as “offensive to God.” Under that, the Court’s attack smelled of white male supremacy, anti-immigrationism, and denial of culture-shift.

The political right and left define themselves by loosely bound packages of issues that rise from interest groups. Kindred threads form coalitions to link interests ranging from anti-abortion to gun rights to Critical Race Theory to reducing immigration, etc. Just so, the anti-abortionist attack on Roe v. Wade drew support from Critical Race Theorists, anti-immigrationists, and white supremacists. (CRT proposes that a “foreign” race or culture will dominate when its numbers top some demographic threshold.)

The right’s fear that the establishment might lose its majority standing over people of color is burdened by a guilt-ridden history of oppressing minorities. Rightists are dismayed that affluent white women of breeding age can opt for abortions while impoverished dark-skinned immigrants, unencumbered by white opportunity, produce bumper-crops of babies that grow to become voters. By scuttling Roe v. Wade, the court offered the media its label-worthy best by doing all it could to ensure that more white pregnancies go full-term. Call it “The Maximize White Births Decision.”

Robert Graef

Mill Creek