The Congressional Black Caucus is sounding the alarm. An end to abortion in several states will disproportionately impact Black people, CBC chair Joyce Beatty said in a statement.
“The extreme right-wing Supreme Court majority’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the law of the land for 49 years that gave a woman the right to choose, will have far-reaching and painful consequences,” Beatty said in her statement.
“I, along with members of the [CBC], are co-leading a letter to President Biden urging him to swiftly declare this unprecedented attack on abortion rights and access as the public health the national emergency that it is [sic],” she said.
Let it be said that it’s true that black women suffer more miscarriages, have more problem pregnancies, have less access to prenatal care, and are more likely to die of pregnancy-related complications.
But is the answer to these problems to abort the babies or take care of the mothers?
The CBC isn’t the only one pushing for Biden to declare a “public health emergency” as a result of the Dobbs decision. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tina Smith penned an op-ed in the New York Times also demanding Biden declare an emergency to “protect abortion access for all Americans” and unlock “critical resources and authority that states and the federal government can use to meet the surge in demand for reproductive health services.”
On Friday, with the release of the Dobbs decision, we entered a perilous time that threatens millions of women across this nation. We urge the president to declare a public health emergency to protect abortion access for all Americans, unlocking critical resources and authority that states and the federal government can use to meet the surge in demand for reproductive health services. The danger is real, and Democrats must meet it with the urgency it deserves.
Well, that’s one way to make an end-run around the Supreme Court and the Constitution: get the president to use dictatorial powers to declare a “national emergency” in order to “protect abortion access for all Americans” — even in states that have declared it illegal.
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We’re in this dark moment because right-wing politicians and their allies have spent decades scheming to overrule a right many Americans considered sacrosanct. Passing state laws to restrict access to abortion care. Giving personhood rights to fertilized eggs. Threatening to criminalize in vitro fertilization. Offering bounties for reporting doctors who provide abortion services. Abusing the filibuster and turning Congress into a broken institution. Advancing judicial nominees who claimed to be committed to protecting “settled law” while they winked at their Republican sponsors in the Senate. Stealing two seats on the Supreme Court.
Whoa there, Tex. “Stealing two seats” on the Supreme Court? Huh? That’s a new one, but we’ll probably be hearing a lot worse going forward. And what’s this about “abusing the filibuster”? Were both Senators asleep between 2017 and 2021 when Donald Trump was stymied time after time by Democrats using the filibuster?
“Threatening” to criminalize in vitro fertilization is not the same as actually criminalizing it. In fact, it’s nothing like criminalizing in vitro fertilization because it hasn’t happened and won’t happen. That’s a nutty thing to say from two of the nuttiest Democratic Senators in Washington.
Biden will not declare a national emergency because some women won’t be able to get an abortion. He knows that what goes around, comes around. The next Republican president will be happy to follow Biden’s precedent and declare a national emergency on something else — something that Democrats might not be pleased with.
In the meantime. we’re going to have to endure the hysterical rants and exaggerations of the CBC and Democratic Senators who need to scare women to get them to the polls.
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