STATE OF AMERICA: The United States’ growing political, cultural and moral conflict is a cautionary tale

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A big split in values, fuelled by a series of Supreme Court decisions, is a cautionary tale of a country whose culture is in conflict.

as a momentous period in American life and government. But it may not be in a good way. Instead, there are signposts that parts of the country are heading towards an embrace of both a kind of radical religious fundamentalism — as well as those elements that could be read as an endorsement of some of the more disturbing features of a Hobbesian world.

A statue of George Floyd is unveiled at Flatbush Junction on 19 June 2021 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. The unveiling of the statue happened just days after Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday. In previous years, the so-called doctrine of originalism, championed by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, had argued for a judicial posture in which decisions by the courts must be motivated on the basis of the original intentions of the initial drafters of the Constitution or in succeeding amendments as they are adopted.

Thus with the appointment of the three new Trump justices, however, the doctrine of originalism has now become allied with that new form of judicial activism. This one, however, was intent on actively extirpating more expansive expressions of “rights”, derived or implied, by a “right to privacy” not spelt out specifically in the Constitution, even if the doctrine of equal protection of all citizens is. In this effort, its primary advocates were long-serving Justices Alito and Thomas.

“Ever since it was approved in 2000 as an abortion pill, mifepristone has been regulated as if it were a dangerous substance. The US Food and Drug Administration required doctors to be specially certified to prescribe it. Patients had to sign an agreement confirming that they had been counselled on its risks. Most onerously, the pill had to be given in person in an approved clinical setting — even though a second drug used to complete the abortion, misoprostol, could be taken at home.

Such a position argues that an embryo, no matter how early along in the process from conception onward, is a person in the legal and theological sense. Critics of such a position insist its proponents care rather more for the soul of an embryo than for the life and health of the would-be mother or the actual welfare of such a child, as he or she grows up over the next two decades, if the woman is required by law to give birth to a full-term child.

 

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