Now and then, the morons of the world will latch onto a clever phrase and put it to use:
“I think we should eliminate the filibuster for Roe,” Harris said in an interview that aired Tuesday morning. “And get us to the point where 51 votes would be what we need to actually put back in law the protections for reproductive freedom and for the ability of every person and every woman to make decisions about their own body and not have their government tell them what to do.”
In 2022 as vice president, Harris said she supported ending the filibuster to protect reproductive and voting rights. As a candidate for president in 2019 when she was a U.S. senator, she also said she would support ending the filibuster to pass environmental legislation known as the Green New Deal. [Emphasis added]
Leave aside the willingness to destroy the filibuster, a critical provision for the protection of the prerogatives of the minority party. Focus on that phrase reproductive rights. Is there “a right to reproduce?” If so, from what characteristic of human nature does it derive?
This is a non-trivial question. If there’s a right to reproduce, then there’s also a right not to reproduce. Lawyers and legislators could twist that into a right to abort. But in point of fact, there is no such thing as a right to reproduce, for no individual can reproduce without the participation of at least one other. If there were, members of one sex could rightfully compel members of the other to collaborate. What, then, would happen to our laws against rape and sexual coercion?
By the way, there’s also no right to vote, for reasons only slightly more complex. Quite a lot of otherwise sensible persons would disagree. Still, no matter how vehemently angry their protests – and take it from your Curmudgeon Emeritus, they can get pretty rank – the facts are against them. But that’s a battle for which I have no taste this early on a Wednesday.
