For the People?
Illustration by Gavin Quinton
On the evening of Monday, May 2, I was doing homework when I received an email from the New York Times. My heart sank as I read the headline. It read “Breaking News: The Supreme Court has privately voted to strike down Roe v. Wade….” The disappointment I felt that moment seems ever-increasing these days, as it appears as if my rights are threatened every day in this country. But this continual disappointment signifies a lot more than the natural outcomes of politicians located throughout the political spectrum, especially with a political spectrum as skewed to the extreme as America’s. It signals the fact that it is not uncommon for our political institutions to work against their people and their needs.
Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in 1973, has been under attack by politicians since before it was voted on by the supreme court. But a big reason why it got so close to being overturned in the present day is its conservative majority. Five of the nine judges are ideologically conservative, and three of these justices appointed – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett- were appointed by President Donald Trump. President Donald Trump, who ran a campaign on calling Mexicans rapists, talked about sexually assaulting women, and called for a temporary ban on Muslim Immigration, won in 2016 with 4.1 million fewer votes than his opponent Hillary Clinton. During his time in office, Trump’s approval rate peaked at 45% according to Pew Research.
Regardless of his failure to gain support from the majority of voters, Trump made many concerning decisions with his power. This includes appointing 4,000 people to political positions, including 226 judges in total to our justice system. Three of those appointments, who were his appointments to the supreme court, now oversee how the law of the land is interpreted and exercised. And their latest development is that the right to an abortion is not a guaranteed right by the nation, a decision that will negatively impact millions of people.
Last year, I got the ability to vote. I was excited to finally have a say in laws that affect me and my loved ones, and use my right to help enact laws that I believed could better the lives of my fellow Americans. Instead, I was met with the cruel reality that laws and policies that harm me can be enacted without my say. My rights were fought over up to my 18th birthday and far beyond it. And my adulthood, which was supposed to be a time of newfound freedom, has instead become a stressful state of wondering which of my rights will be up for debate next.