Constitutional amendment

L.W., a transgender girl, her parents, and her doctor agreed that it would be good and medically appropriate for her to receive gender-affirming hormone therapy. The state of Tennessee, where L.W. lived, passed a statute in 2023 prohibiting transgender minors from receiving such treatment. Did the statute discriminate against L.W. on the basis of sex? The US Supreme Court said it didn’t. In 2023, the British government planned to send to Rwanda people who tried to get to the United Kingdom on small boats and then seek asylum. Would that policy violate the asylum seekers’ human rights because the conditions in Rwanda were unsafe? The UK Supreme Court said it did.

The Pennsylvania legislature is gridlocked over a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would lift the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse cases for two years. If it passes, people would be able to sue over child sexual abuse regardless of the number of years that have passed since the alleged abuse occurred. A pair of Villanova University economics professors published an economic analysis of the bill, which they project will cost Pennsylvania — i.e., the taxpayers — between $5 billion and $32 billion, as many of these claims would likely be against public school employees.

Over the past fifty years, America has allowed a grave atrocity to persist. The magnitude of the callous disregard for human life constituted by abortion is unconscionable. Now, at long last, we can now begin the work of rectification. With the Supreme Court's rejection of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, countless innocent lives have been spared. America can now rejoin the ranks of nearly every other developed democracy, placing basic, democratically enacted limitations on when in a pregnancy an abortion may occur. Instead of a debate shrouded in legal jargon, we can finally have the necessary conversation about whether this is an acceptable practice in a civilized society.