What does it mean?

Last year, the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, a case that had protected a woman's right to make her own reproductive decisions, including whether to terminate a pregnancy. The decision reversed a fifty-year legal consensus that the Constitution protects individuals from government interference with individual autonomy--our intimate life decisions-- and gave state legislators the power to make that decision for their female constituents. Twenty-four states proceeded to ban or greatly restrict access to abortion. Passing a federal law restoring the rule that Roe v. Wade had established would give women in every state the right to personal liberty that they lost when the Court overturned Roe.

 

Why does it matter?

For the past fifty years, Americans have relied upon a constitutional doctrine known as substantive due process, often called the "right to privacy." That doctrine confirmed that certain "intimate" individual decisions-including one's choice of sexual partners or the decision to use contraception- are none of government's business. That doctrine distinguishes between decisions that government has the legitimate authority to make, and those which, in our system, must be left up to the individual. The Bill of Rights spells out decisions that, in America, government is forbidden to make: what books you read, what opinions you form, what prayers you say (or don't). The issue isn't whether that book is dangerous or inappropriate, or that religion is false, or whether you should marry someone of the same sex, or whether you should procreate: the issue is who should get to make that decision.

 

Codifying Roe v. Wade will return that decision to the individuals who should be making it.

 

A vote for Marc Carmichael is a vote to restore women's liberty; a vote for his opponent is a vote to keep women as second class citizens.

​

NEXT>>

​

​