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Supreme Caucus promotes inconsistency, instability and unpredictability in U.S. laws [1]

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Date: 2024-06-30  

Common thread of recent overturnings of well-established legal precedents: Taking decision-making power away from those with the greatest on-the-ground knowledge . The U.S. Supremely Conservative Caucus (USSCC) is the billionairist, uber-conservative Roman Catholic wing of the U.S. Supreme Court. In the last two years, The USSCC has demolished multiple 40+ year precedents in support of their billionaire patrons and in support of the conservative Roman Catholic values promoted by political kingmaker, arch-conservative, devout Roman Catholic, Leonard Leo. The recent USSCC reversal of the 1984 Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council is yet another overturning of a foundational, decades-old precedent. In 2023, the USSCC overturned a 1978 case allowing racial affirmative action in college admissions. In 2022, the USSCC threw out the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision giving women the constitutional right to end a pregnancy and by extension, granting physicians the right to make medical decisions that involve ending problematic pregnancies without fear of criminal prosecution.

The common thread in the overturning of these three well-established legal precedents is the usurpation of decision-making power by (mostly male, mostly generalist) legislators and judges from the people with the on-the-ground knowledge needed for optimal public health outcomes.

Discipline-specific, doctoral-level expertise will save more lives than generalist legislators and judges. Discipline-specific, doctoral-level expertise on the health effects of pollution is what is needed for optimally protective decision-making with regards to regulating corporate emissions. There is discipline-specific, doctoral-level expertise on the health effects of pollution in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). There is no such expertise among legislators and judges. Yet, in rejecting the 44-year precedence of the Chevron rule, the USSCC now believes that generalist legislators and judges are more appropriate decision-makers than EPA scientists when it comes to promulgating regulations designed to protect the public from corporate polluters. Because legislators and increasingly judges are more beholden to billionaire political kingmakers than government scientists, regulatory decision-making will now favor corporate profits over American lives, resulting in thousands more premature deaths attributable to poorly regulated air pollution.

The USSCC shackled academic decision-makers with respect to having student bodies better represent the diversity of the American population . Diversity of life experiences and an environment welcoming of minority perspectives are hallmarks of innovative businesses and high-impact universities. Racial/ethnic diversity of health professionals is particularly important in light of the consistent evidence that patient health outcomes are optimized when medical care is provided by culturally competent providers. By eliminating the use of race/ethnicity in academic decision-making, the USSCC will prevent universities from recruiting and training the requisite number of Black, American Indian, Latinx health professionals to match population needs, with predictably inferior health outcomes and avoidable deaths for Black, American Indian and Latinx Americans.

Ending the federal guarantee of access to abortion care is killing fully-born Americans . Conservative Roman Catholics comprise maybe 10% of the U.S. population but the Leonard Leo-assembled conservative Roman Catholic USSCC (67% of SCOTUS) has permitted states to impose on all their constituents the conservative Roman Catholic minority-held view that human life begins at the moment that the sperm fertilizes the egg. Completely overturning as "egregiously wrong" a 50-year precedent that had been reaffirmed (with tweaks) in Planned Parenthood versus Casey was the height of judicial hubris. Ironically, the Dobbs decision called a time-tested, compromise standard that had worked for 50 years "unworkable" and associated with "inconsistent legal frameworks."

The 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision has proved to be unworkable . In just two years, the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision has proved to be remarkably unworkable with negative effects on women's healthcare outcomes despite no apparent decline in the total number of abortions in the U.S. These negative health effects of abortions are found disproportionately in low-income, ethnic minority women without the resources to travel to another state in order to obtain an abortion. This landmark ruling generated an immediate and sustained surge in legal battles. Republican-led states immediately moved to impose on pregnant constituents and their health care providers virtual bans on abortion care, sometimes with no exception for rape and incest. The resulting patchwork of varied abortion laws across the 50 states has led to complex legal issues, including challenges related to cross-state travel for abortions, the legal status of medication abortions, and potential prosecution of individuals assisting others seeking out-of-state abortions. This decision also increased federal litigation around interpretation of federal laws in the context of state-imposed abortion bans, such as U.S. military personnel stationed in states with abortion bans being provided assistance by the federal government to obtain abortion care in other (mostly Democratically-led) states that permit abortion care.

The pregnant woman and her obstetrician know best . The individuals most intimately familiar with the real-world pros and cons of ending a pregnancy are the pregnant woman and her obstetrician. The 2022 Dobbs decision has replaced the pregnant woman and her obstetrician with (mostly male, generalist) legislators as the ones who decide if she will be allowed to abort her fetus. Ironically, the same legislators banning abortions are the ones least likely to support government-subsidized health care. Knowing that giving birth is already fourteen times more likely to lead to premature death than abortion care, it is not surprising that maternal mortality rates are higher in states that have imposed abortion bans compared to states that have not. Ironically, even neonatal deaths have increased in “pro-life” states that have banned abortions. The public has been shocked by the societal disruptions (e.g., departure of obstetricians from abortion-banning states) and cruel refusals by (mostly male) policymakers to authorize medically-indicated emergency abortions. Two years after Roe versus Wade was overturned, public support for a return to Roe versus Wade is at its highest level ever (63%).

The USSCC war on women is accelerating further restrictions on women's reproductive rights . The Roman Catholic bishops' war on women is not limited to eliminating their access to abortion care, but also aims to limit their access to contraception, in vitro fertilization, same sex marriage rights and make it harder for them to divorce abusive husbands. Leo Leonard-supported judges and (mostly male) legislators are working to further constrain women's freedoms, even if it costs women their lives.

Members of the USSCC violate their oaths of office . The U.S. Constitution was established to "promote the general welfare" of the people of the United States, among other goals. The six members of the USSCC are violating their oath of office by deliberately undermining the general welfare at the behest of their billionaire patrons. They are the USSCC instead of SCOTUS because they now act like politicians, not jurists. Their recent decisions to dismiss the Idaho case and no longer place a stay on the District Court's injunction placing Idaho's Defense of Life Act on hold were placeholder political decisions, not legally justified ones, as Justice Jackson warned in her dissent. Three members of the USSCC opted to reinstate a lower court ruling that temporarily allowed hospitals in the state to perform emergency abortions to protect the health of the mother. They gave a temporary green light to emergency abortions to avoid inflaming reproductive rights supporters just months before the November Presidential election. This same issue will come before the SCOTUS in the next term, providing the USSCC another opportunity to further restrict women's access to abortion care, this time without jeopardizing the elections of pro-forced birth Republican legislators.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/30/2249817/-Supreme-Caucus-promotes-inconsistency-instability-and-unpredictability-in-U-S-laws?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=community_spotlight&pm_medium=web

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