Katz: It's ironic people cry freedom over mask mandates while hard-won women's rights erode

Sarah Weddington, who argued Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that allowed women control over their reproductive issues 49 years ago, died just before the end of 2021.

This vibrant, intelligent woman whose excellent argument helped improve women’s lives stressed the importance of treating every person decently. Ironically, her death came at a time when Supreme Court justices are deciding whether to dismantle all the constitutional protections for women’s reproductive health protected in their earlier decision now or wait until after the 2024 election.

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Certainly, if the predictions that the six very conservative justices vote to totally end of Roe's protections for women come to pass, their decision will cause hardship and/or death for those who do not have the resources to travel elsewhere or to access an abortion-causing pill in a timely manner.

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To end abortions for all women, including those of us more affluent, the government would need to establish a police state, with women checked before they board planes or drive into another state on any highway or road.

It would be ironic in a time when a mask or vaccination mandate to help protect others as well as the mask wearer is considered to be a removal of freedom that the very controlling, restrictive anti-abortion laws would be expanded to include police searches at all borders.

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However, many of those “pro-life” folks focusing on restricting women’s reproductive health decisions show little or no interest in improving health care or otherwise making it more feasible for women to bring a healthy fetus to term and then to raise that child.

Could the goal be to return women to being considered unable to be responsible for themselves?

Many male legislators voting for restrictive abortion laws also vote for the “freedom” to carry a gun without a license or training, to go without a mask, to not be mandated to vaccinate or otherwise regulated.

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(I wonder if freedom from regulations includes a return to the type of food industry described in Upton Sinclair’s "The Jungle," where dead rat might be ground up with diseased cow and sold to customers as good meat.)

Many believe easier access to good, affordable medical care, childcare, affordable housing, time-off from work, and higher salaries would prevent many abortions, with most of the remaining abortions based upon the mother’s health issues.

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Besides the harm to especially poorer women, overturning Roe could remove the constitutional protection of privacy, a right the late Justice William O. Douglas described as a “penumbra” of implied privacy rights from several of the Amendments to the US Constitution.

Douglas used these implied privacy rights to overturn a law banning the sale to or even discussing birth control items with married couples.

Will this basis of Roe stand, or will a majority of Supreme Court justices find that the word “privacy” — like the word “abortion” — is not specifically mentioned in the U.S. Constitution and therefore, the right does not and cannot exist or be enforced?

The current the Supreme Court majority could go even further. Already, we have seen decisions limiting governmental power to force business to mandate vaccinations or masks for employees or landlords to keep tenants who couldn’t pay rent because COVID made working impossible.

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Will the high court find other government-required safety, financial, civil rights, minimum pay or other protections also beyond the power of the federal government to issue and enforce? Possibly yes.

Let us not forget that the Texas six-week abortion law’s encouragement of suits of anyone who helps a woman get abortions undercuts the authority of all courts by allowing regular people — not courts, not police — to enforce a law.

But perhaps the justices’ vision of a limited federal government also includes a less powerful Supreme Court.

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I fear watching the erosion of all of the rights that Weddington and others fought so hard to advance, that weighed heavily on her, weakening her health.

May she rest in peace. And may we keep a government that truly protects all of us.

Janyce C. Katz was an assistant attorney general for almost 25 years and currently works at General Innovations and Goods, Inc.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Opinion: What will happen if Roe vs. Wade is overturned?