Dobbs

Now that America’s focus has zeroed in (for the time being) on the Supreme Court’s controversial decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Democrats are hoping the predictions of a midterm red wave will dissipate. It’s possible. But it’s worth noting that whenever Democrats think they have a winning hand, they almost always overplay it. Will this time be any different? On Thursday, President Biden — who clearly does not abide by Senator Arthur Vandenberg’s aphorism about politics stopping at the water’s edge — blasted the Supreme Court’s “mistake” while speaking at a NATO summit in Madrid.

Cockburn isn’t much for parades, but one happened to pass him by on Thursday when protesters with the Center for Popular Democracy rallied to overturn the overturning of Roe v. Wade. For a while, Cockburn walked alongside the protesters, watching as people in blue vests herded them along until they reached an intersection, where they promptly sat down. Cockburn, being the exquisite legal scholar that he is, deduced that this was illegal. And the demonstrators knew it too. The event was intended as a “mass civil disobedience.” Once sat down, they enjoyed chants, songs, and generally being arrested by the police. One particularly excited speaker said into the microphone: Together we gather full of righteous indignation, threatened by a radical minority...

A few mornings ago, Cockburn caught Hillary Clinton on one of the CBS morning shows. As it turned out, she was on to discuss the recent Dobbs decision, and she had some choice words for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. “I went to law school with him," she said. "He’s been a person of grievance for as long as I’ve known him. Resentment, grievance, anger...women are going to die, Gayle. Women will die.” Clinton is entitled to her opinion (though who is she to call anyone else resentful?) but her sentiment on Thomas's statements has been contradicted by none other than Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Thomas’s ideological opposite on the Supreme Court.

While on Bret Baier's Fox News show Special Report, Ohio Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan said there should be no abortion restrictions at all, establishing himself as radical even by pro-choice standards. After the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court, Ohio passed a heartbeat bill that restricted abortion after six weeks. Yet Congressman Ryan believes this is too strict. In fact, he believes any kind of restriction is too strict. Ryan said, "Look, you got to leave it up to the woman, because you and I sitting here can’t account for all of the different scenarios that a woman, dealing with the complexities of a pregnancy, are going through. How can you and I figure that out?

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.

Many are worried about losing their abortion rights now that the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade. In some states, abortion will now be heavily or fully restricted, while other states are busy trying to keep the procedure available throughout all nine months of pregnancy — even though 65 percent of Americans support banning most abortions after the first trimester. With Roe gone, each state will have free rein to create abortion laws, and some are intent on expanding and maintaining radical, unregulated options. It’s not just about access to abortion, but proper medical care for women undergoing them and protection for babies who may ultimately survive them. To this end, abortion radicals have little to offer.

When Cockburn took a rainy-day stroll past the United States Supreme Court on Thursday, he didn’t expect to see many people. To his surprise, there were several protesters outside, anticipating a decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which could overturn Roe v. Wade. Cockburn decided to stop and chat with both pro-life and pro-choice demonstrators, briefly catching interviews between shouting matches laced with obscenities and references to genitalia. “Roe is a barbaric remnant of a eugenic past. [It’s] responsible for the murder of 60 million babies," said Terrisa Bukovinac, the founder and executive director of the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising.“I believe in equity, nonviolence, and nondiscrimination.

On Friday, June 3, assailants vandalized the Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center, not far from Cockburn's Washington home. An unknown party splashed a gallon of red paint on the center’s front door and doormat, as well as egging the place and spraying graffiti on the walls that said, “JANE SAYS REVENGE.” “As the day unfolded, there was a lot of positive outreach," Janet Durig, the pregnancy center’s executive director, told Cockburn. "We’ve had people asking from all over the area asking if anything is damaged or needs to be replaced.” She also said, “The police were extremely helpful.

It's been almost a month since Politico scooped its bombshell leak, an unprecedented revelation of a draft majority opinion in a still-pending Supreme Court case. That leaked draft opinion, penned by the stalwart Justice Samuel Alito in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, would finally overturn 1973’s infamous Roe v. Wade abortion decision. Alito’s draft opinion does not go far enough, at least as far as the proper pro-life end goal is concerned, but it is a praiseworthy development and an admirable start toward an abortion-free America.

I'm not ready to celebrate the death of Roe v. Wade just yet. The reason has more to do with baseball than it does with the Supreme Court. I'm a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan, which means I know what it's like to think you're about to win only to be crushed yet again. I remember well game seven of the 2003 ALCS when the Sox battled the Yankees 11 innings deep only for Aaron Boone to finish it with a walk-off home run. The next year, when Boston won the World Series for the first time since 1918, I didn't breathe until Keith Foulke threw to first for the final out. So it is now with Dobbs v. Jackson, the most important Supreme Court case of my life.

Nearly 50 years after Roe v. Wade unleashed a constitutional right to abortion and redefined modern American politics, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has arrived as its foil. In a term already packed with high-profile cases ranging from gun rights to religious liberty to the death penalty, the Supreme Court has announced it will hear arguments in Dobbs on December 1. In doing so, the Court has opened the door to overturning Roe and its sister case, Casey v. Planned Parenthood, sending the question of legal abortion back to the states. The case itself centers on a 2018 Mississippi law that, with limited exceptions, bars abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy.