Protesters outside of the Supreme Court in Washington on Monday.Credit…Kenny Holston for The New York Times
To the Editor:
Re “Leaked Draft Shows Court Would Topple Roe v. Wade” (front page, May 3):
For nearly half a century, American women have relied on the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade to ensure their individual autonomy. If the court wishes to overturn Roe, it must consider the impact of that decision on the legitimacy of the court.
Already, many are suspect of the composition of the court as a result of partisan ploys and disingenuous gamesmanship at the highest level. Years of press coverage of justices as “conservative” or “liberal” have eroded the public’s faith in the impartial decision-making of the court.
Americans care about stare decisis. They care about protecting individual rights. They care about the rule of law. And they care about the legitimacy and credibility of the Supreme Court.
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case before the court, is not just a question of a woman’s right to choose or whether Roe was correctly decided. It is a question of whether our core institutions will crack under pressure, and the American democratic experiment along with them.
Maggie McGannon
New York
The writer is a lawyer.
To the Editor:
I feel as if I have been punched in the gut. I have never had an abortion. Not sure I could. To think that it would be an easy decision for me or anyone is insensitive thinking. Yet it should be my decision or the decision of my four daughters or seven granddaughters. Not yours. We have to live with the decision. Not you.
I would love to see a man deal with the conflict of having sex and enjoying it as well as fearing getting pregnant and the responsibility that would entail. Or a man pregnant by rape. I wonder if this issue would still be left to be decided by the Supreme Court.
A sad day for me, most women and many supportive men. I am disgusted to see our rights stripped away. I pray it empowers the rest of us to raise our voices and finally be seen and heard. We can do this!
Dody Osborne Cox
Guilford, Conn.
To the Editor:
In my work over many years I have counseled many pregnant women about their options while empowering their very personal decision making.
If you have ever sat with a 14-year-old girl who is pregnant as a result of being raped by a family member, as I have, a child who is frightened for her well-being and sees her future collapsing, you could not accept the possibility that all abortions could be banned in some states. The decision does not belong to anyone but the girl or woman and her health care providers.
Michael J. Salamon
Hewlett, N.Y.
The writer is a psychologist.
To the Editor:
After Mitch McConnell’s gambit to thwart Merrick Garland’s nomination and three Supreme Court appointments under Donald Trump, we knew this day would come. And, yet, a leak of the draft opinion potentially overturning Roe sends chills down my spine. The reality is coming into stark relief.
A majority of the citizenry is in a scramble to imagine a terrifying new future, one where the state can require a woman to carry a pregnancy to term, regardless of the circumstances.
Despite the shock of it, I am more concerned with the day after. What’s next? Obergefell v. Hodges, protecting the right of same-sex marriage? What will be the state of personal freedoms 20 years from now? They are all fair game, just waiting for the right case to come along.
Welcome to the brave new America.
Manish Mehta
Oberlin, Ohio
To the Editor:
I take no issue with any person’s religious or principled beliefs. I wonder, though, if ardent pro-lifers ever consider the plight of children who are born — and unwanted.
Not everyone is predisposed to be a nurturing parent. Yet children are inevitably born to parents who don’t want them. How many of these children are physically abused? And if not physically abused, what about mental abuse or neglect?
Most of us understand that love and nurture are essential for a child’s development. Yet pro-lifers may not appreciate that only about 4 percent of women with unwanted pregnancies give their children up to adoption. What about the other 96 percent? We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of unwanted unborn children.
Phoebe Huang
Stonington, Conn.
To the Editor:
The leaked draft written by Justice Samuel Alito overturning Roe v. Wade shows his arrogance and extremism. Was Roe v. Wade egregiously wrongly decided from the start? If so, it was a 7-2 decision, in which five justices were Republican appointees and two were Democratic appointees. In dissent, one was a Republican appointee and the other a Democrat appointee.
Justice Alito is spitting in their faces and letting his personal feelings and probably his Catholicism, not any legal reasoning, dominate. If the conservative majority joins him in such a decision, it will be a decision that significantly damages the credibility of the court.
George Magakis Jr.
Norristown, Pa.
To the Editor:
So the position of the Republican Party is that the government cannot force people to wear a mask during a pandemic, but it can force a woman to have a baby. Whatever happened to my America?
Barbara Barran
Brooklyn
To the Editor:
Despite Justice Samuel Alito’s assertion that abortion access should be decided by the people’s elected representatives, the court’s history of intervention on behalf of civil liberties when lawmakers have failed to act is longstanding.
Without its intervention, the American people could very well be without marriage equality (Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015), racially integrated schools (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954), interracial marriage (Loving v. Virginia, 1967), or protections for sexual harassment victims in the workplace (Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 1986).
Leaving issues like abortion to the people’s elected officials would be best if we lived in a democracy with equitable representation and voting access. However, America does not meet that ideal. Until it does, the court bears a responsibility to continue protecting essential civil rights like women’s access to health care.
Gabe Downey
Southfield, Mich.
