Tex Sample: I’m not pro-abortion, but I see a Supreme Court that’s gone off the rails

I am livid with this so-called Supreme Court, its free market fundamentalism, its mindless gundamentalism and its states’ rights idolatry.

I was first outraged by its 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, declaring that money is free speech and opening the door to clandestine political donations that huge wealth now makes to control policy in this country. If money is free speech, then why is it not public? Why can corporations and wealthy individuals sequester their so-called free speech of dark money contributions without being identified?

Also, note the priority the court gives to states’ rights over the rights of people. I became involved in the civil rights movement back in 1958. The biggest obstacle we had legally was that of states’ rights and their use to deny human rights to people of color, especially Black Americans. This wretched beast of a policy is now raising its head with suggestions of reversing the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

I happen to support hunters and others owning guns through safe gun laws. I oppose stringently the mindless positions of the NRA, which argues that guns don’t kill people but that people do. Even a child can understand that people with guns kill people. As my friend the Rev. Sam Mann says, he has never seen a drive-by stabbing

At the same time, I am aware that for decades the Second Amendment was understood to mean that the right of the people to bear arms had to do with militias — more like the National Guard — than the individualistic interpretations now put into place by our Supreme Court. And I am deeply troubled because one of the powerful original reasons for this amendment was to provide slave states with the military capacity to control slaves with armed power. If this Supreme Court is so concerned with the Founding Fathers’ supposed original intent in writing the Constitution, why don’t the justices deal adequately and honestly with these realities?

The plain fact is that government is incompetent to make decisions regarding a deeply personal issue like abortion. For one thing, any policy regarding abortion establishes a religious point of view. Further, in the Constitution, a citizen of the United States is defined as one born in this country or otherwise naturalized. Why is this Supreme Court making decisions that intrude upon the privacy of U.S. citizens? The Constitution does not address the fetus or the unborn.

Yes, it is appropriate to be concerned about safe medical practices, but they come under more general policies related to health care, hospitals and medical services. Difficult decisions related to a woman’s body need to be those of her own, her family, her medical providers and her faith commitments. The state has no competence to be involved in these matters.

Just for the record, I am not pro-abortion, but I support Roe v. Wade because there are tragic conflicts between life and life in which an abortion may be justified. The state needs to keep its heavy-handed policies out of the delicate considerations required in these decisions.

Finally, there is one very important first step we can take to speak an authoritative word to this ideologically overwhelmed Supreme Court. My recommendation is that we simply refuse to vote for Republicans in these midterm elections. Please understand, I am not a Democrat. I am an independent Christian. But the Republicans need to return to the party of Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower and Jackie Robinson. If they sustained significant losses in the coming elections, it would empower thoughtful Republicans who know that their party has gone berserk.

Tex Sample is retiring pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in Kansas City and the Robert B. and Kathleen Rogers Professor Emeritus of Church and Society at The Saint Paul School of Theology, where he taught for 32 years.