OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A leading Democratic senator is getting pushback after she appeared to threaten violence and war in the streets should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn or dramatically limit Roe v. Wade, the 1973 SCOTUS ruling that legalized abortion in all 50 states.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who has always supported the widest possible access to abortion, said there would be “revolution” among younger Americans who would see the high court’s ruling in striking Roe down as “not acceptable.”
“I hope the Supreme Court is listening to the people of the United States because … I think if you want to see a revolution, go ahead, outlaw Roe v. Wade and see what the response is of the public, particularly young people,” Shaheen said during a virtual event Monday featuring New Hampshire’s congressional representatives as they met with family planning professionals.
“Because I think that will not be acceptable to young women or young men,” she forecast.
The Washington Examiner added:
Shaheen’s remarks came after a question about whether the debate over abortion was “muted” because most people alive today only know life post-Roe. The 74-year-old senator said the topic mattered to her because she experienced a world before the Roe v. Wade ruling, which found a constitutional right to privacy that extends to those seeking abortions.
“I’ve lived the consequences of the pre-Roe era,” Shaheen said. “I had friends in college who were forced to seek dangerous back-alley abortions because women across the country were denied access to critical family planning services.
“We cannot allow Republican lawmakers to turn back the clock on women’s reproductive health and rights, which is precisely what the Mississippi case seeks to do,” she added. “It is time to sound the alarm.”
Some took Shaheen’s comments as a threat to the Supreme Court — that justices must ‘rule the right way,’ or else.
Is @JeanneShaheen threatening the court? Inciting people to violence? #Hypocrisy https://t.co/y1Vn67rHzs
— Brenda Adams Bell (@BrendaBell) November 30, 2021
In fact, the Supreme Court has reversed itself in the past; in fact, according to a 2012 Catholic Review piece, the high court tends to reverse previous decisions on average of once per year.
But in the Mississippi case, Gov. Tate Reeves said it’s not an issue of women’s health, it is an issue of states’ rights, which is embodied within the 10th Amendment.
“I believe, in a simple reading of the United States Constitution, that when Roe was decided in 1973, there is no fundamental right in our United States Constitution to an abortion,” Reeves told NBC’s Chuck Todd in a “Meet the Press” interview Sunday.
“And furthermore, Chuck, I believe very strongly that if you read the Constitution, there is nowhere in the Constitution that prohibits individual states, states like Mississippi, to limit access to abortions,” the governor said. “And so I think Roe was wrongly decided.”
The high court is set to hear orgal arguments in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, on Wednesday. The case hinges on whether a ban on elective abortions before fetuses have developed to the point of viability is constitutional.
“The far-left loves to scream ‘my body, my choice,’ and what I would submit to you, Chuck, is they absolutely ignore the fact that in getting an abortion, there is an actual killing of an innocent, unborn child that is in that womb,” Reeves continued.
He went on to say that to his mind, “the difference between vaccine mandates and abortions is vaccines allow you to protect yourself,” which prompted the host to counter that a “vaccine is about preventing spread. You could argue a vaccine mandate is a pro-life position.”
Reeves replied that White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci has “made it very clear that the vaccine may not keep you from getting the virus, it may not keep you from spreading the virus, but it can keep you from ending up in the hospital.”
“That’s what’s been proven during this delta surge that we’ve seen in America is that the virus is continuing being spread even amongst those who are vaccinated,” the GOP governor added.
