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Kansas Has Taught Us To Believe In Power To The People [1]
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Date: 2022-08-14
Let’s talk about Kansas — a state, putting it lightly, is not exactly a progressive state. It hasn’t voted for a Democratic Party presidential candidate since LBJ in 1964, for example. It was the least likely state that we would have thought would have stood up for abortion rights, but on Aug 2 almost 59% of Jayhawkers came out to enshrine abortion rights in the states constitution.
That’s even more than the 56% that voted for Donald Drumpf two years ago. If anything this should remind us that our basic rights can only be protected at the ballot box and not by some black-robbed philosopher kings.
Rights don’t get more basic than controlling one’s own body and forcing a pregnant woman to carry pregnancy is a gross violation of that basic right, autonomy over her own body.
The question arise as to how best to guarantee those rights?
For a long time it has been believed that our system of checks and balances, designed to limit democracy, are necessary to prevent the “tyranny of the majority”.
That fear of democracy has put power in the hands of unelected judges who are loyal only to the words of the American constitution.
But in practice, its these very unelected judges and legislators that regularly trample on minority rights. The fact that they don’t have to face reelection makes it much more likely that they rob us of our rights.
Sure, it’s possible that the next three American Presidents will be a Democratic Party nominee and a bolt of lightening hits the Federalist Society dinner, killing off 2-3 of these judges, given the would-be President ample opportunity to reshape the court and reinstate Roe v Wade.
But don’t hold your breath.
Instead, we should look to countries like Ireland. In an essay I read recently by Djene Rhys Bajalan, the author argues that the Irish won the right to abortion by a referendum; not through judges or challenging this law or that. Through the force of democratic will.
A popular movement to reinstate abortion rights is what is needed in the US, just as it has been galvanized in the Latin America and elsewhere.
When the Kansas legislature put forward the “Value them Both” bill, taking the right to pregnancy termination out of the constitution of the state, Kansans mobilized marches, and rallies, and defeated the amendment with a huge margin.
What this proves is that American people are better at defending basic rights than an unelected panel of judges.
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