(Photo courtesy of Rachel Malehorn/CC BY 3.0)
I have been a practicing lawyer for more than 50 years. I have argued cases in many courts and have the greatest of respect for the court system. I respect and admire the judges who serve us each day. One of my greatest experiences as an attorney was being sworn into admission to the U.S. Supreme Court. It was made more memorable by the fact that the ceremony occurred on the same day as lawyers were arguing the famous Bush vs. Gore case, which decided who would be president.
Of all the courthouses that I have entered, none has the thrill of our Supreme Court. Over the past 150 plus years, some of the greatest lawyers in the nation and brilliant judges have helped make national history in cases that outlawed segregation, affirmed our rights to free speech and have declared that women are entitled to decide whether they should have control over their own bodies.
Justices appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents have pledged to honor our Constitution and have often defied the dominant political parties by making decisions that rankled the presidents who appointed them. These periodic streaks of political independence have assured the average citizen that they will get a fair shake in our highest court.
But today’s Supreme Court majority is now nothing more than an extension of a political system and is determined to follow the agenda of the party that got them elevated into these positions. Recently, for one brief day, I was of the opinion that regardless of personal politics, the Court would avoid being a group of partisans. Justice Amy Coney Barrett warned her colleagues that “the bench has to be hyper vigilant to ensure that personal bias doesn’t creep into our decisions.”
Barrett created the impression that she was prepared to buck the political system to avoid the court being called a political flunky. Those fleeting words were just that. A bunch of feel good utterances and nothing more. It has long been known that Justice Barrett has been a vigilant foe of abortion. She signed newspaper ads urging that abortion be banned in America. She has written extensively about her strong anti-choice views and nothing was going to prevent a female justice from telling all the other women in America what their rights are.
Rather than weigh the pros and cons of abortion, Justice Barrett had a simple solution for all women. She proclaimed that women should “give birth to a child and then leave him or her with an agency for adoption.” Aside from the fact that she proposes a cold-hearted solution, she also is willing the newborns to a life with no guarantees of normalcy. I assume her birthing theory also applies to a woman who had become pregnant by rape or incest, because she makes no distinction.
America has experienced many ups and downs; this is truly a major turn downward for our nation.
Former State Assemblyman Jerry Kremer is a columnist for Anton Media Group and partner at Ruskin Moscou Faltischek in Uniondale. The views expressed are not necessarily those of the publisher or Anton Media Group.
