Examining Democracy and Women's Rights After Dobbs Decision
School
Indiana University, Bloomington**We aren't endorsed by this school
Course
POLS Y212
Subject
Communications
Date
Dec 12, 2024
Pages
7
Uploaded by ChancellorLeopardMaster1193
11/10/24, 9:46 AMSusan B. Anthony Is Rolling Over in Her Grave This July 4th – Democracy in Dark TimesPage 1 of 7https://jeffreycisaacdesign.wordpress.com/2022/07/04/%EF%BF%BCsusan-b-anthony-is-rolling-over-in-her-grave-this-july-4th/Susan B. Anthony Is Rolling Over in HerGrave This July 4thJuly 4, 2022A little over a week ago, the U.S. Supreme Court’sDobbsdecision decisivelyoverturned over 50 years of precent established byRoe v. Wade, thereby delivering adeath blow to the reproductive freedom of women across the country, from sea toshining sea. That this represents an assault on women’s rights, and on democraticcitizenship itself, is widely understood by many Americans. At the same time, for theminority of Americans who have energetically sought this result for decades, thedecision, perversely, represents not a defeat but a triumph of not simply “life” but“women” and “democracy” itself.Among these indefatigable activists one Marjorie Dannenfelser looms large, as thepresident of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, formerly known as the Susan B.Anthony List. Founded in 1993 and rebranded this year, the group relentlesslyopposes abortion while claiming to promote the activism of women committed to“traditional,” i.e., patriarchal, “family values.” Last week’s SCOTUS decision was amajor victory for the group, which has feted such feminists as Joni Ernst, Nikki Haley,Mike Pence, and Donald Trump. And on the very day the decision was rendered,Dannenfelserannouncedthat her group would now undertake a campaign to banabortion “in every state and in every legislature, including the Congress.”Claiming the banner of Susan B. Anthony, one of the most important feminists andwomen’s su"rage activists in U.S. history, Dannenfelser indeed declared that thedecision is “a restoration of what authentic feminism is.”If Susan B. Anthony heard these words, then she is no doubt rolling over in her grave.And on this July 4, as we face a multi-pronged e"ort by the Republican party toundermine democracy itself, it is especially appropriate to consider why.Democracy in Dark TimesFacing the challenges of contemporary democracy
11/10/24, 9:46 AMSusan B. Anthony Is Rolling Over in Her Grave This July 4th – Democracy in Dark TimesPage 2 of 7https://jeffreycisaacdesign.wordpress.com/2022/07/04/%EF%BF%BCsusan-b-anthony-is-rolling-over-in-her-grave-this-july-4th/One reason is straightforward: because, while “pro-life activists” have laid claim toher legacy, it has long been well understood that this claim ishighlycontroversialand equallyproblematic, centering as it does on the almostcertainly false attribution to Anthony of a single article, anonymously published in1869, entitled “Marriage and Maternity” that itself emphatically denounced lawsbanning abortion even as it valorized maternity and described abortion as “childmurder.” (Harper D. Ward has published a careful and devastating critique of theclaims of Dannenfelser and other anti-abortion activists entitled “MisrepresentingSusan B. Anthony on Abortion” at the website of the National Susan B. AnthonyMuseum and House.)A second reason is equally straightforward but more profound: because last week’sSCOTUS decision represents an assault not only abortion rights but on the broadercommitment toegalitarian democracythat was at the heart of Anthony’s career as awomen’s rights activist and su"ragette.For according to the logic of the decision, it is entirely legitimate for states to outlawabortion—and, by implication, contraception, non-heteronormative sex, non-heterosexual and perhaps even interracial marriage. And it is equally legitimate totreat women seeking abortion and the doctors who furnish them with reproductivehealth care—along with a wide range of other categories of people seeking to enjoyprivacy in their intimate lives or to pursue their professional vocations withoutinterference–as criminals. The idea that this is remotely consistent with equalcitizenship is preposterous. In the 21century–which is not the 18century–toabolish a general “right to privacy” is to relegate entire categories of people to thestatus of second-class citizens who live under a potential or an actual cloud ofsuspicion, are denied the freedom to be the people that they are, and are at risk ofcriminal prosecution if they behave as the people that they are.Nothing could be further from the egalitarian vision of Anthony and her 19centurycolleagues.It was on another July 4, in 1876, that the uninvited Anthony seized the platform ofthe Centennial celebration of the Declaration of Independence inPhiladelphia, anddeclaredthat “we ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all thecivil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed tous and our daughters forever.” She proceeded to read aloud and then circulate a textdrafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and herself for the NationalWoman Su"rage Association entitled “Declaration of the Rights of Woman of thestthth
11/10/24, 9:46 AMSusan B. Anthony Is Rolling Over in Her Grave This July 4th – Democracy in Dark TimesPage 3 of 7https://jeffreycisaacdesign.wordpress.com/2022/07/04/%EF%BF%BCsusan-b-anthony-is-rolling-over-in-her-grave-this-july-4th/United States.” This Declaration, much like its more famous predecessor, the 1848Seneca Falls “Declaration of Sentiments,” o"ered a feminist and radically egalitarianrevision of the original 1776 Declaration of Independence, well summed up in thisparagraph:“Our faith is firm and unwavering in the broad principles of human rights proclaimedin 1776, not only as abstract truths, but as the corner stones of a republic. Yet wecannot forget, even in this glad hour, that while all men of every race, and clime, andcondition, have been invested with the full rights of citizenship under our hospitableflag, all women still su!er the degradation of disfranchisement.”After enumerating a long list of degradations, all linked to the denial of the right tovote, the text concluded thus:“And now, at the close of a hundred years, as the hour-hand of the great clock thatmarks the centuries points to 1876, we declare our faith in the principles of self-government; our full equality with man in natural rights; that woman was made firstfor her own happiness, with the absolute right to herself – to all the opportunities andadvantages life a!ords for her complete development; and we deny that dogma of thecenturies, incorporated in the codes of all nations – that woman was made for man –her best interests, in all cases, to be sacrificed to his will. We ask of our rulers, at thishour, no special favors, no special privileges, no special legislation. We ask justice,we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens ofthe United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.”It is impossible to reconcile these words with the mission statement and theadvocacy of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.Indeed, Anthony most famous speech, “Is it a Crime for a Citizen of the United Statesto Vote?” undermines not simply the right-wing “pro-life” position on abortion but theentire jurisprudence underlying the SCOTUS majority decision overturning Roe. For itchallenges the very idea that fundamental rights require explicit articulation in theConstitution in order to be considered fundamental.The circumstances surrounding the speech are now legendary. On November 1,1872, along with a number of other women, Anthony visited a voter registrationo#ce in Rochester, New York with the intention of registering to vote. Her goal wasto cast a vote for Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for U.S. President, in1872, on the ticket of the Equality Party. The registration o#cials refused to allowher to register on the grounds that she was a woman, but when she threatened to
11/10/24, 9:46 AMSusan B. Anthony Is Rolling Over in Her Grave This July 4th – Democracy in Dark TimesPage 4 of 7https://jeffreycisaacdesign.wordpress.com/2022/07/04/%EF%BF%BCsusan-b-anthony-is-rolling-over-in-her-grave-this-july-4th/sue them, they relented. She thus registered and, on election day on November 5,1872, she voted.Days later this “transgression” was reported, leading to her arrest for illegally votingin a federal election. Anthony refused to plead guilty or to accept bail, and spent 2months in jail, hoping to have her case brought to the Supreme Court. She was triedon June 17, 1873, during which the judge precipitously ended the trial by denouncingher and directing the jury to declare a guilty verdict. At her sentencing hearing onJune 18, she disregarded the judge’s orders and delivered a speech against herconviction. The judge then declared her penalty to be a $10,000 fine. She refused topay, and he allowed her to be released anyway.It was in the Spring of 1873, while out on bail awaiting trial, that Anthony organizedaspeaking tourthroughout upstate New York, in which she delivered “Is it a Crimefor a Citizen of the United States to Vote?” The speech was quite literally a tour deforce. Drawing on a wide range of legal and political sources in the American politicaltradition—the Declaration, the Revolution, and the “spirit of ‘76”; a litany of stateconstitutions and legislative enactments; a long tradition of legal scholarship andconstitutional argument; and especially the Constitution itself and its recentlyratified13, 14, and 15Amendments—Anthony insisted that it is not and shouldnot be regarded as a crime for any citizen of the U.S. to vote, and that women, ascitizens, have as much right to vote as any other citizens.To be clear, the National Woman Su"rage Association, founded by Anthony andStanton, was formed in 1869 in protest of the 15Amendment’s failure to explicitlyrepudiate the denial of voting rights to women, and it represented animportantsplitwithin the long-standing coalition between abolitionists and feministsin support of egalitarian democracy (the broader dynamic of racism within sectionsof the su"ragette movement is nicely discussedhereandhere). But while initiallycommitted to the amendment of the Constitution to enshrine female su"rage, by theearly 1870’s, Anthony had embraced a rhetorical strategy centered on the idea thatanother Constitutional amendment was hardly necessary to advance the cause ofwomen’s rights.Her argument was simple: the Constitution itself already implicitly required awoman’s right to vote, in the language of its preamble; the 13Amendment’sabolition of “slavery and involuntary servitude”; the 14Amendment’s commitmentto equal protection under the law; and the 15Amendment’s insistence that the rightto vote shall not be denied on the basis of “race, color, or previous condition ofththththththth
11/10/24, 9:46 AMSusan B. Anthony Is Rolling Over in Her Grave This July 4th – Democracy in Dark TimesPage 5 of 7https://jeffreycisaacdesign.wordpress.com/2022/07/04/%EF%BF%BCsusan-b-anthony-is-rolling-over-in-her-grave-this-july-4th/servitude. For if any “class” has long experienced servitude, Anthony argued, it waswomen.In short, Anthony argued that even if the Constitution never articulated a woman’sright to vote, a reading of its core provisions was impossible to reconcile with thedenial of this right—an argument for “substantive due process”avant la lettre. Apretty straight line can be drawn between the logic of this argument and the“substantive due process”jurisprudencebehindRoeand, before it,Griswold,centered on the idea of a generalized “right to privacy.”Anthony would surely be appalled by theDobbsruling and by the radical logic behindit, which repudiates a century of normative, legal, and political progress in theunderstanding and the codification of women’s rights, human rights, and democracy.But she might not be surprised. And while she would surely not forswear legal orjurisprudential e"orts to reinstate the value of female autonomy assaulted byDobbs,she would probably reiterate the argument she made in that infamous 1872 speech—that what the situation required was a strategy ofpolitical activismto reclaim theexisting Constitution and the rights entailed by it.The concluding words of that speech are worth quoting verbatim:“Benjamin F. Butler, in a recent letter to me, said:“I do not believe anybody in Congress doubts that the Constitution authorizes theright of women to vote, precisely as if authorizes trial by jury and many other likerights guaranteed to citizens.”And again, General Butler said:“It is not laws we want; there are plenty of laws-good enough, too. Administrativeability to enforce law is the great want of the age, in this country especially.Everybody talks of law, law. If everybody would insist on the enforcement of law, thegovernment would stand on a firmer basis, and question would settle themselves.”And it is upon this just interpretation of the United States Constitution that ourNational Woman Su!rage Association which celebrates the twenty-fifth anniversaryof the woman’s rights movement in New York on the 6th of May next, has based all itsarguments and action the past five years.
11/10/24, 9:46 AMSusan B. Anthony Is Rolling Over in Her Grave This July 4th – Democracy in Dark TimesPage 6 of 7https://jeffreycisaacdesign.wordpress.com/2022/07/04/%EF%BF%BCsusan-b-anthony-is-rolling-over-in-her-grave-this-july-4th/We no longer petition Legislature or Congress to give us the right to vote. We appealto the women everywhere to exercise their too long neglected “citizen’s right to vote.”We appeal to the inspectors of election everywhere to receive the votes of all UnitedStates citizens as it is their duty to do. We appeal to United States commissioners andmarshals to arrest the inspectors who reject the names and votes of United Statescitizens, as it is their duty to do, and leave those alone who, like our eighth wardinspectors, perform their duties faithfully and well.We ask the juries to fail to return verdicts of “guilty” against honest, law-abiding, tax-paying United States citizens for o!ering their votes at our elections. Or againstintelligent, worthy young men, inspectors of elections, for receiving and countingsuch citizens votes.We ask the judges to render true and unprejudiced opinions of the law, and whereverthere is room for a doubt to give its benefit on the side of liberty and equal rights towomen, remembering that “the true rule of interpretation under our nationalconstitution, especially since its amendments, is that anything for human rights isconstitutional, everything against human right unconstitutional.”And it is on this line that we propose to fight our battle for the ballot-all peaceably, butnevertheless persistently through to complete triumph, when all United Statescitizens shall be recognized as equals before the law.”Can Americans committed to democracy and the equal rights of all citizens summonthe energy and mobilize the resources to renew this fight? Will the Democratic partyand its leadership rise to the occasion, recognizing that politics as usual is not nowan option, and that it is urgently necessary to mobilize vast numbers of voters inNovember on the basis of a real commitment to democratic reform, social andeconomic justice, and the reinstatement of the ideal of civic equality?We will see.
11/10/24, 9:46 AMSusan B. Anthony Is Rolling Over in Her Grave This July 4th – Democracy in Dark TimesPage 7 of 7https://jeffreycisaacdesign.wordpress.com/2022/07/04/%EF%BF%BCsusan-b-anthony-is-rolling-over-in-her-grave-this-july-4th/je!saacJuly 4, 2022UncategorizedEditLeave a commentAdvertisementsOccasionally, some of your visitors may see an advertisement here,as well as a Privacy & Cookies bannerat the bottom of the page.You can hide ads completely by upgrading to one of our paid plans.UPGRADE NOWDISMISS MESSAGEDemocracy in Dark Times, Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.Do Not Sell orShare My Personal Information