Roe v. Wade, Representative Kinzinger throws down with AUMF

Sometimes both sides are right, sometimes a member of Congress shows that they have the right stuff.

A reader reached out this morning and asked what I thought about the overnight bombshell from Politico, the leaked draft of an opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, which appears to signal that the U.S. Supreme Court is prepared to overturn Roe v. Wade when it decides an abortion case from Mississippi, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, this summer.

This is a tough one. I think that most abortions are no one’s business except women and their doctors. But I also think that Roe v. Wade was a flawed decision made by an activist court that created a right not enumerated in the Constitution.

Am I delighted that it’s apparently about to be overturned? No. Do I think that it’s improper for the Court to overturn it? Also, no. Am I concerned about the leak? Yes - that’s the one part of all of this that I have no reservations about.

Whoever leaked this opinion put their own political desires above their professional duty to the Court. If it was a clerk, they’ll surely be disbarred. If it was a civil service employee, I hope they have the means to pay some steep legal bills.

Abortion is one of those issues that I don’t think has a right or wrong answer. How one feels about abortion is wrapped up their moral values. As far as I’m concerned it’s not up to me, or anyone else really, to tell anyone that they’re wrong to feel the way that they do about this very personal topic. I see both sides of the issue.

So I don’t quite know what to think. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion doesn’t instantly become illegal everywhere, it just goes back to the states. Even most of the states that have passed laws restricting abortions have not banned them outright. It’ll be a brave new world, for sure. But we’ll have to see exactly how it all pans out.

But I get it if you are devastated. You are not all wrong. I’ve been in the room before with women who terminated a pregnancy - and I think that everyone was better off for them having done so. There are no easy answers here - just ugly realities.

In decidedly better news, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill) recently introduced an authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) resolution which, if passed by Congress, would authorize President Biden to allow U.S. military forces to defend Ukraine in the event of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack by Russian forces.

Disclosure - I’m a member of Country First, an organization founded by Representative Kinzinger. I’m an unabashed supporter of his. I’m very happy to see Kinzinger throw down on Ukraine. He and Dana Pittard are the clearest voices in Washington on Ukraine right now.

What remains to be see is how happy all of the Democrats in the Country First Facebook group will be when Rep. Kinzinger, a rock-ribbed conservative on everything except Trump, does something very conservative. That group might get smaller in the next few days.