Tomorrow, Ohioans will vote on Issue 1 — the enshrinement of reproductive rights in the Ohio Constitution. The amendment will likely pass. If it doesn’t, Ohio will be governed by a six-week abortion ban, with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the health of the mother.
A local Evangelical pastor has been seeking out people who have VOTE YES signs in their yards, asking them why they are baby killers. In his Bible-sotted mind, if you support a woman’s right to choose, you are a baby killer; a murderer. I do not doubt that he believes that abortion should be criminalized and anyone who facilitates, participates in, or has an abortion should be criminally prosecuted and incarcerated.
I have no hope of meaningfully interacting with people who think I am a “murderer” because I think women should have a right to control their bodies; that abortion is an essential part of reproductive care.
So, does this mean I am a murderer; a baby killer? Of course not. Eight out of ten abortions take place in the first trimester, long before the zygote, tissue, or fetus is a “baby.” To be sure, the fetus is “potential life,” but not a baby (in the normative sense of the word). Once a fetus reaches viability — 22 to 24 weeks, roughly six months — then a case can be made for regulations to ensure that only fetuses that have fatal birth defects or are threats to the health and life of the mother are aborted (which account for roughly 12,000 abortions per year).
All of us have a right to bodily autonomy — including pregnant women. I will vote YES tomorrow because I want women, including my two daughters, daughters-in-law, and thirteen granddaughters, to have the absolute right to control their own bodies. Appeals to God, the Bible, or other dogma carry no weight with me. I don’t care what the Bible says, the church says, or some preacher says about the matter. My only concern is for women themselves.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
I have had numerous internal discussions with myself about whether to write this post, and how to frame the subject if I did. This is a story about personal space and bodily autonomy — for a man. I am cognizant of what women — my wife, daughters, teen granddaughters, sister, and friends — go through every day in a sexualized world dominated and controlled by men who see women as playthings put on earth for their use and gratification. The #metoo movement brought to everyone’s attention how pervasive sexual harassment and assault really are. I have spent countless hours thinking about my own complicity in treating women as less than; of not recognizing their absolute right to personal space and bodily autonomy. As a result, I have changed my ways: my actions and speech. For example, I had taken it for granted that female acquaintances of mine were okay with me hugging them when we came in contact with each other. I had always hugged them. “That’s what friends do,” I told myself. However, I never bothered to consider if they wanted to be hugged. I just assumed . . . . I came to understand that I had no right to hug a woman without her permission. So, I ask first before hugging them. It is literally the least I can do.
When I go out in public, I always dress well. No slumming for me. You will never see me in public wearing sweatpants or ratty clothing. I pay attention to what I wear, making sure that my hat, suspenders, socks, and shoes match my shirts and pants. Welcome to OCPD. 🙂 Some may say my attention to these things is obsessive, however looking right, looking smart, and looking dapper matters to me. Quite frankly, I don’t give a shit about what others think about my appearance.
I also know that I have a nice beard, one I take great pride in. I know I look like Santa Claus. During the holiday season, it is not uncommon for adults to call me Santa and for children to stare with that wide-eyed look when I pass by. I have embraced my Santaness, taking time to talk to children about Christmas. Quite frankly, I enjoy doing so.
Unfortunately, I have had adult women take things too far, invading my personal space without my permission. Several years ago, a woman plopped herself on my lap at a high school basketball game. At another game, an attractive woman in her late 20s snuggled up to me, putting her hand firmly on my leg, so she could tell me what she wanted for Christmas. I have had women, without asking permission, touch and run their fingers through my beard. Others have complimented me on my look while telling Polly how lucky she should feel for having a good-looking man like me. Creepy stuff. Uncomfortable, to say the least. And believe me, I am the one who got the better end of the deal when I met and married Polly.
Polly’s mom died last week. Her funeral was on Saturday. Before the service started, I was talking to Polly’s aunt from Michigan and her son and his wife. It’s been years since I have seen them. We had a delightful conversation. One of our family’s Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preachers deigned to come near me. His only words to me as we shook hands were: “Hey, Bruce. God bless your heart.” And with that, he walked away. I said to myself, “fuck you.”
As I looked up, my eyes connected with his wife, a cousin of Polly’s whom I have known for forty-seven years. As a toddler, this woman was in our wedding. We have gotten along well over the years. She is quite outgoing, much as her mother was. What happened next, though, was quite disturbing and offensive.
As the woman saw me, she said loudly, “Bruce!” As she came closer to me, she asked, knowing my battle with chronic illness and pain (her mom died of bone cancer and couldn’t bear to be touched), “are you doing hugs these days?” I replied “yes, ” and we embraced. (Yes, I was in a lot of pain, but I typically — my counselor says wrongfully — defer to others.) As we broke our embrace, this woman proceeded to put her hands on each side of my face, slowly running her fingers through my beard — twice. She then pulled me back close and said, “you sure smell nice!” (I use cologne from Scentbird — a monthly subscription service. High quality colognes at an affordable price.)
Here we were in the middle of an IFB church. Polly and her husband were mere feet away. I felt uncomfortable, to say the least. We traded several more pleasantries, and then I walked away to my seat. I have only seen this woman twice in the past seventeen years. She assumed a familiarity with me that she did not have. As I sat down next to Polly, I said to her “what the fuck was that?” We later talked about the fact that I had but a taste of what many women go through every day of their lives. Did the woman in question mean anything by her actions? No. She was, however, raised in a church environment where taking liberties with the personal space and the bodies of others was common. Greet one another with a brotherly kiss, the Bible says. Affectionate hugs are common. No one bothers to ask for permission before hugging.
I try to hug my children and grandchildren when I see them. I love them dearly and I want them to know it. That said, some of them are huggers, and others are not. I respect their wishes. Last year, my oldest son’s girlfriend came over for a family holiday for the first time. As they were leaving for the night, I hugged my son. I turned to her and said, “is it okay if I give you a hug?” She said “yes,” and we embraced.
We don’t know the lived lives of others: family members who have been groped by uncles; women who have been assaulted by preachers, deacons, and Sunday school teachers in the name of Christian love; roving hands and lengthy embraces from men (and sometimes women) who are indifferent to what others want and find comfortable. Instead of assuming, ask. It really is that simple.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Article by Jenny Breen, an Associate Professor of Law at the Syracuse University College of Law, where she teaches Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, and Labor Law.
What is the end game here for the U.S. Supreme Court’s right-wing majority? It’s not pretty.
The leak of the U.S. Supreme Court’s draft opinion in the Mississippi abortion ban case has put into authenticated form an announcement that abortion advocates on both sides of the aisle have been predicting for years: stack the Court with Republican-appointed justices and Roe v. Wade will be overturned. The Court’s leaked opinion does just that, holding that both Roe and Casey are now bad law because there is no longer any constitutional right to abortion.
The current draft—which will be revised between now and its formal publication, likely in June—tells us a lot about where the Court stands on abortion, of course, but also other constitutional rights and the role of the courts in our constitutional republic.
First, though the opinion purports only to hold that there is no constitutional right to an abortion, thus permitting states to implement laws restricting, banning, or even criminalizing abortions, the language of the draft opinion lays the groundwork for a future federal ban on abortion altogether. Alito’s opinion approvingly quotes Mississippi’s claims that dilation and evacuation abortions are “barbaric,” “dangerous for the maternal patient,” and “demeaning to the medical profession” as “legitimate interests” that “provide a rational basis” for the Mississippi ban. (The draft opinion employs rational basis review rather than the tougher level of review reserved for gender-based distinctions because—though it may surprise any human on the planet to hear it—the Court reminds us that previous cases have established that “regulation of abortion is a not a sex-based classification”). These “interests” are, of course, anti-choice talking points, not rational bases for a ban on abortion. Their embrace by the draft majority opinion makes clear that Alito is being disingenuous when he claims that the decision “is not based on any view about when a State should regard prenatal life as having rights or legally cognizable interests.” Instead, the opinion is suffused with the unstated but implied belief that legally cognizable life begins at conception.
Second, Alito is also deeply disingenuous when he argues the opinion won’t impact other fundamental rights. Alito’s opinion holds there is no right to abortion because that right is neither explicitly mentioned in the Constitution nor implicitly contained within the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection of an individual’s right to liberty. Many of our most cherished constitutional rights are only impliedly contained within the expansive, conceptual language of the Constitution. As Justice Marshall reminded the Court over 200 years ago, “we must never forget that it is a Constitution we are expounding.”
So why does it matter to other constitutional rights that Alito doesn’t think individual liberty includes the right to decide whether to have an abortion? Because the liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause and the right to privacy it encompasses are also the bases for the Court’s protection of gay marriage, the right to contraception, the right to private consensual sex, and the right to interracial marriage.
“Liberty,” the Court explained in Lawrence v. Texas, “presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct.” Alito says he can’t seem to find a liberty interest in abortion because “the most important historical fact” is “how the States regulated abortion when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted.” Needless to say, these other core rights would also not fare well under an analysis that prioritizes what legislatures were doing in 1868. Alito has already suggested as much. His dissent in Obergefell v. Hodges reads like an early edition of this draft opinion, arguing that gay marriage “lacks deep roots” and “is contrary to long-established tradition” and thus is not a right that can be protected by the Constitution.
Finally, the opinion makes clear that the guard rails are gone when it comes to SCOTUS decision making. Throughout the opinion Alito returns repeatedly to the argument that the decision will correct “Roe‘s abuse of judicial authority” and “return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” Of course, fundamental rights are fundamental rights because they are not up for debate by “the people’s elected representatives.” We don’t ask for state referenda on whether we should permit racially segregated schools. Courts do their best and most essential work for a democracy when they protect the interests that enable humans to live with dignity and autonomy.
In 2018, Alito wrote the majority opinion Janus v. AFSCME, the decision that held that public employees could not be compelled to pay agency fees to the unions that are required by law to represent them and advocate for their interests. Though public employee unions have passed the small “d” democratic test not once but twice—elected state legislators must first pass a law enabling public unions and then, of course, the public employees themselves must vote for their union—Alito’s majority opinion overruled a 41-year-old precedent to hold that agency fees violated the First Amendment rights of public employees. At the time of the opinion, commentators expressed concern that the Court’s easy overruling of a case it did not like did not bode well for Roe v. Wade in the hands of a differently constituted Court. And of course, that is precisely what seems to have happened.
Alito tries to ease the shock of the decision to overrule such longstanding and prominent precedent by citing a number of cases—I counted 26 in total—in which the Supreme Court has overruled its own precedent. But I am not aware of a single case on that list in which the Court overruled precedent to take away a previously granted constitutional right.
So what is the end game here? Alito’s full vision for the United States has yet to be painted, but thus far it’s looking like an America in which “raw judicial power” (words he quotes disparagingly regarding Roe four times in the draft opinion) is used to foist the world views of judicially privileged interests upon the rest of us.
In the meantime, it means that where you live and what private resources you have at your command will be increasingly important to chart the course of your life.
As disconnected as they may seem on their face, overruling decades of precedent to weaken public unions on the one hand and doing the same to revoke a woman’s right to choose whether to have an abortion on the other are two sides of the same oppressive coin. They both chart dramatic turns away from an understanding of the law and Constitution grounded in commitments to individual dignity and autonomy in core spheres of life—work and family—and establish a core role for the judiciary in steering the ship in that direction.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
