By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens
Ms. Collins and Mr. Stephens are Opinion columnists. They converse every week.
Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. We’ve had two monumental Supreme Court decisions over the last week, on guns and abortion. Maybe it isn’t a fair question, but which of them scares, dismays, enrages or makes you want to bang your head against the wall more?
Gail Collins: I feel totally traumatized by both of them — even though, I admit, I was pretty much expecting everything that happened.
Bret: A line that’s making the rounds: It’s like knowing daylight saving time is coming and setting your clock back 50 years.
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Gail: Maybe feeling most intense about the gun decision because I know how many terrific colleagues are rallying against the one on abortion. Here we are in New York, which is relatively speaking a very safe city, thanks in good part to the local gun laws we’ve observed. But conservative attachment to law and order disappears whenever it gets in the way of right-wing attachment to their guns.
Sorry, I’m ranting. Your thoughts?
Bret: You aren’t ranting at all. Or rather, rant away.
Gail: OK, if I’ve got permission to rant, I’ll get to the abortion decision after all. Just reading Clarence Thomas’s preening concurrence about how this is just the first step — next targets: same-sex marriage and women’s overall right to purchase contraceptives.
Bret: Give him a point for honesty, which is more than can be said for Brett Kavanaugh.
Gail: I wrote a while back wondering if Texas’ anti-abortion law from last September would be the first step in a war against every form of birth control more efficient than the rhythm method, but did not expect the idea to pop up in a Supreme Court opinion.
I know that was just from Thomas’s comments, but it’s so important to see which way this kind of thinking is pointing. A woman’s power to decide whether she wants to be pregnant was totally key to our liberation. Take it away and you’re back to a time when women were expected to quit work after they got married because there was no effective way of knowing when they’d get pregnant. And to totally avoid sex if they were single because of the fear that they’d get pregnant and ruin their reputations and careers.
OK. Time for you to get in here.
Bret: Agree with everything you say. For me, the word that comes to mind is arrogance. Supreme arrogance.
In the gun decision, the court is denying New York State the normal democratic right to decide for itself how it should go about ensuring domestic tranquillity, which is the basic function of government. In the Mississippi abortion case, the court is doing something closer to the opposite: giving a state government the unfettered ability to erase an individual right that, until last Friday, had been upheld by the court for nearly five decades.
That said, I’m probably not as gloomy about this as you are. There might even be some positives.
Gail: Oh gosh, tell me what — quick.
Bret: Maybe this is all lipstick on the proverbial pig, but three things.
Politically, last week was a very good one for Democrats. The national conversation suddenly turned from the price of goods to priceless goods: personal safety and choice. There’s now a fighting chance that Democrats will hold the Senate in November. They might also start winning back some of the seats they lost in state legislatures, where the future of abortion rights will be decided.
Gail: Republican Party, this is how far you’ve fallen: Bret Stephens is rooting for Democrats to take over all the legislatures.
Bret: So long as they are pro-business, pro-police, pro-Israel and pro-charter schools. Mike Bloomberg, in other words.
My second point of optimism is that, medically speaking, we’re in a different world than 1972 or 1973. Abortion pills that work till the 10th week of pregnancy are now widely available and, as of December, can be obtained by mail. Far from an ideal solution, I know, but it goes some way toward mitigating the effects of the court’s decision.
Ms. Collins and Mr. Stephens are Opinion columnists. They converse every week.
Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. We’ve had two monumental Supreme Court decisions over the last week, on guns and abortion. Maybe it isn’t a fair question, but which of them scares, dismays, enrages or makes you want to bang your head against the wall more?
Gail Collins: I feel totally traumatized by both of them — even though, I admit, I was pretty much expecting everything that happened.
Bret: A line that’s making the rounds: It’s like knowing daylight saving time is coming and setting your clock back 50 years.
Advertisement
Continue reading the main story
Gail: Maybe feeling most intense about the gun decision because I know how many terrific colleagues are rallying against the one on abortion. Here we are in New York, which is relatively speaking a very safe city, thanks in good part to the local gun laws we’ve observed. But conservative attachment to law and order disappears whenever it gets in the way of right-wing attachment to their guns.
Sorry, I’m ranting. Your thoughts?
Bret: You aren’t ranting at all. Or rather, rant away.
Gail: OK, if I’ve got permission to rant, I’ll get to the abortion decision after all. Just reading Clarence Thomas’s preening concurrence about how this is just the first step — next targets: same-sex marriage and women’s overall right to purchase contraceptives.
Bret: Give him a point for honesty, which is more than can be said for Brett Kavanaugh.
Gail: I wrote a while back wondering if Texas’ anti-abortion law from last September would be the first step in a war against every form of birth control more efficient than the rhythm method, but did not expect the idea to pop up in a Supreme Court opinion.
I know that was just from Thomas’s comments, but it’s so important to see which way this kind of thinking is pointing. A woman’s power to decide whether she wants to be pregnant was totally key to our liberation. Take it away and you’re back to a time when women were expected to quit work after they got married because there was no effective way of knowing when they’d get pregnant. And to totally avoid sex if they were single because of the fear that they’d get pregnant and ruin their reputations and careers.
OK. Time for you to get in here.
Bret: Agree with everything you say. For me, the word that comes to mind is arrogance. Supreme arrogance.
In the gun decision, the court is denying New York State the normal democratic right to decide for itself how it should go about ensuring domestic tranquillity, which is the basic function of government. In the Mississippi abortion case, the court is doing something closer to the opposite: giving a state government the unfettered ability to erase an individual right that, until last Friday, had been upheld by the court for nearly five decades.
That said, I’m probably not as gloomy about this as you are. There might even be some positives.
Gail: Oh gosh, tell me what — quick.
Bret: Maybe this is all lipstick on the proverbial pig, but three things.
Politically, last week was a very good one for Democrats. The national conversation suddenly turned from the price of goods to priceless goods: personal safety and choice. There’s now a fighting chance that Democrats will hold the Senate in November. They might also start winning back some of the seats they lost in state legislatures, where the future of abortion rights will be decided.
Gail: Republican Party, this is how far you’ve fallen: Bret Stephens is rooting for Democrats to take over all the legislatures.
Bret: So long as they are pro-business, pro-police, pro-Israel and pro-charter schools. Mike Bloomberg, in other words.
My second point of optimism is that, medically speaking, we’re in a different world than 1972 or 1973. Abortion pills that work till the 10th week of pregnancy are now widely available and, as of December, can be obtained by mail. Far from an ideal solution, I know, but it goes some way toward mitigating the effects of the court’s decision.
Opinion | The Supreme Court’s Fighting Words
Dobbs and Bruen reveal the sweeping terribleness of the current court’s reasoning.
www.nytimes.com