“How many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry? Yes, and how many deaths will it take ’til he knows that too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind, the answer is blowin’ in the wind” (Bob Dylan, 1962).

Updating Dylan’s call, I ask, how many ears must the so-called Supreme Court have before it can hear the anguished cries of pregnant women who do not want a child? Yes, and how many back-alley abortion deaths will it take for Congress to know that too many women have died?

The answer, my friend, is when the six Christian Nationalists on the U.S. Supreme Court start making legal decisions based on the U.S. Constitution instead of their personally held religious beliefs.

As Americans United for Separation of Church and State wrote, “This Supreme Court abolished the constitutional right to abortion in an opinion that is a direct attack on the separation of church and state. Religious freedom demands the right to an abortion so people can make their own reproductive decisions according to their own principles. Abortion bans undermine religious freedom by attempting to impose one religious viewpoint on all of us. Americans United is readying religious freedom litigation which will bring this argument to our courts.”

Reversing Roe, requiring states to pay for Christian education, and allowing public school coaches to coerce students to publicly pray with them makes defending the First Amendment of the Constitution a constitutional violation.

The First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Reversing Roe establishes conservative Christianity that teaches abortion is a sin as the de facto national religion. It also prohibits those whose faith teaches them being able to choose an abortion is a sacred right from exercising their own religious convictions.

Apparently prohibiting women from living their faith is just the first step in aborting other personal freedoms. When the disastrous ruling was announced, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the court should reconsider all other 14th Amendment due process decisions, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) gives women the right to use contraceptives. Lawrence vs Texas (2003) gives same-sex couples the right to be in a sexual relationship and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) gives same-sex couples the right to get married.

Interestingly, Thomas did not mention another 14th Amendment personal freedom case, Loving v. Virginia (1967). That case gives interracial couples such as Thomas, a Black man, and his wife, Virginia Thomas, a white woman, the right to get married.

Obergefell, the plaintiff behind the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on same-sex marriage, said on MSNBC’s “The Reid Out” that Thomas did not mention the case because “that affects him personally, but he doesn’t care about the LGBTQ+ community.”

Without the ability of everyone to follow their religious convictions, no one has religious freedom. Writes AUSCS, “The foundational principle of separation of church and state is meant to protect us against that future and to safeguard our right to live as ourselves and believe as we choose. Our laws must not allow anyone to use their religious beliefs to harm others. Allowing one person’s religious beliefs to dictate another’s personal medical and moral decisions is the very definition of harm. We’ll say it again: Reproductive freedom is religious freedom.”

Some will argue that since the Supreme Court has spoken, any effort on the people’s part to reverse course will amount to spinning our wheels. I beg to differ. Who sits on the Supreme Court changes over time, and since this court eliminated respecting precedence, the law of the land will change whenever the balance of power on the court changes. Since presidents, working with other elected officials, nominate justices, it is up to the voters to elect state and national politicians who will defend everyone’s personal freedoms.

Maine voters have an opportunity in November to elect state and national politicians who can directly affect what freedoms we have in Maine. Some candidates support a woman’s right to use contraception and to decide if they want to end a pregnancy. They support everyone’s right to marry who they love. Unfortunately, some candidates do not.

Who you vote for in November will immediately affect whether or not women in Maine keep the right to choose.

Tom Waddell is president of the Maine Chapter of the Freedom from Religion Foundation. He welcomes comments at president@ffrfmaine.org and ffrfmaine.org.

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