Thread by @ZhiZhuWeb

"If the court overturns Roe...

It will also signal the dramatic expansion of religious authority into far-flung corners of American life, as conservative Christians impose their moral ideas on the general public."

washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…

"Part of [Christians'] objection to the legalization of abortion was the way the court simply assumed that the US was a secular, civic republic.

Roe marked the culmination of a 10-year interrogation of the role of religious groups within American society"
washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…

"Through these cases, the court rejected the stance of Christian religious groups...

By the time the court took up the question of abortion, religious conservatives had grown outraged that their moral positions received no consideration."

washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…

[I would say that Christians were outraged that their beliefs were not given SPECIAL consideration.

The justices did 'consider' Christian beliefs, as well as the beliefs of religions that approve of abortion.

But the justices didn't 'privilege' the Christian beliefs.]

"In deciding Roe, the court made its commitment to secularism explicit.

It had to.

The question of when human life began & the exact status of a fetus were essentially religious questions. Different religious groups took divergent positions on abortion."
washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…

"Rather than deciding the precise status of an unviable fetus, it asked itself the question...

“Who should make judgments of that sort?”

An individual woman in consultation with her doctor was the only person charged with making those judgments."

washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…

"Here was a clear articulation of liberalism, which involved seeing women as capable of moral self-determination independent of religious leaders and even their families."

[Unfortunately, this idea that women should be allowed to make their own choices was immediately attacked.]

"Almost immediately after Roe, conservative religious groups, members of Congress and jurists began to back away from that idea [of female bodily autonomy]...

It was a win for conservative religious authorities seeking to influence policy."

washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…

"Conservative religious groups also pushed to restore the church-state connection in other ways...

in an attempt to reinvigorate religious influence within American life."

#Theocracy
washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…

liberals began to remind their conservative counterparts that, as Justice Harry Blackmun put it in 1986,

“The legitimacy of secular legislation depends … on whether the State can advance some justification for its law beyond its conformity to religious doctrine.”

"But conservatives instead became aggressively hostile to the ideal of secular legislation and to the notion that the state has any role in protecting the individual from religious groups."

#Democracy vs #Theocracy
washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…

"The invalidation of Roe, & of women’s right to an abortion, is not really an end but a beginning...

a straightforward attack on the American secular ideal...

as the wall of separation crumbles & as conservative religious authority floods American life."
washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/0…

If you can't afford a subscription (I highly recommend supporting good news orgs if you can afford it), here's a gift link, so you can read the entire article for yourself:
wapo.st/3wFArts