Opinion - Morals in Our Hands
An attempt to rationalise what the f**k is happening in the States
Just 3 weeks ago was the resonant overturning of the landmark Roe v. Wade (1973) that was at the helm of the push for womens’ rights and autonomy in the United States. The Supreme Court ruled 49 years ago that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution guaranteed a “right to privacy”, which in turn affirmed womens’ right to abortion. And, even back then, the ruling was just as controversial as today’s overruling after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022).
The ensuing outrage and widespread condemnation following the Court’s overrule can hardly be said to be unreasonable. Viewing the debacle from the Singaporean lenses made this issue seem all too surreal that this is unfolding right before our eyes and taking place in the very country once hailed as the land of the free. Perhaps amongst all these is the sudden realisation that Singaporeans have long enjoyed (it doesn’t even feel right to use this word) the autonomy that we once thought was a universal human right. I think it is morbidly ironic that I’m writing this opinion post just a few days after my review on Garrett’s “This Book Will Make You Kinder: An Empathy Handbook”. As someone who had always considered body autonomy has a (and certainly one of the) fundamental rights for any human being, I can’t begin to understand the impacts of such a ruling: not only did the Court’s decision set back womens’ rights efforts by almost 50 years, it also paved way to more intrusive laws.
I initially started off this post not to comment on the ruling itself but to rationalise what’s going on as a result of the polarising ruling. It then seemed disrespectful and gaslighting of me to not, so I dedicated the head of this post to explain the context of the ensuing outrage and fallout. Of course, I don’t want this blog to be all doom and gloom, so I did want to keep this post on a lighter mood. In hindsight I guess the preamble didn’t exactly help my cause.
Back to the matter, staying true to it’s name as the land of the free, the people have all but forgiven the Court’s regressive decision: protests, anger, hatred, activism were the norm, but it seemed to reach new heights as people worldwide tuned in to the horror movie now screening in the States. This morning I almost spit out a mouthful of my breakfast coffee fix when I chanced upon this headline.
Of course someone from the Roberts Court just had to be messed with. More humourous was the statement by the Morton’s restaurant that Justice Kavanaugh was at when he was rudely disturbed from enjoying his dinner: “Politics, regardless of your side or views, should not trample the freedom at play of the right to congregate and eat dinner. There is a time and place for everything. Disturbing the dinner of all of our customers was an act of selfishness and void of decency”.
Surely the Founding Fathers didn’t expect to be disrupted from enjoying a good steak and be forced to hold off from eating a Chocolate Mint scoop (yep that’s my go-to, no judging!). I then went onto social media platforms and it seemed that people around the States had a field day. What caught my eye was a top-voted tweet.
Sorry. The Constitution doesn’t mention restaurants or dinner. So…not a right.
This, of all, was most jarring. Funny as it was, it brought up a notion that I hadn’t thought about much prior to this. Obviously, the disturbance to the dinner was an act of social justice: when the government (and in this case the judiciary) fails to deliver, the masses make themselves heard. And, when the Courts fail to make decisions that reflect the people’s morals, people take moral in their own hands. Truly a modern-day demonstration of what Protagoras of Abdera meant by “Man is the Measure of All Things”. Of course, this happens only in the States’s context, and one can only wonder what would happen if this were to happen in Singapore, although we’re certain that the first charge would be an intention to cause harassment.
In the Singapore context, I refer to Supreme Court Justice Choo Han Teck’s words (para. 6).
Enmeshed in normative arguments about moral facts is an obligation to distinguish between what is and what ought to be.
I’m not about to wander into the realm of normative ethics, although I do want to lead into the topic of the value of ethics in law and how I (and many others) perceive the ruling to be unethical. A major pillar in normative ethics is the concept of consequentialism: the belief that a morally right act is one that will produce a greater balance of good over evil than any available alternative. But, “good” in who’s eyes? Underpinning the States Judiciary are the values: Unity, Neutrality, Integrity, Timeliness, Equality, and Dedication. Of note are the values of Unity, Neutrality and Integrity, although I won’t elaborate on the latter two just because it easily lends itself to partisan arguments, which is always ironic given the Singaporean understanding of neutrality.
Focused on the value of unity, the Singaporean would contend that the decision falls short of such a value. Of course, the landmark ruling 50 years ago was no less polarising, but viewed through the modern lenses, it is certainly progressive for the 70s, and women have since enjoyed higher quality of life and greater comfort since then, until today. I argue that with hindsight, the initial overrule was and is a moral right: it changed the lives of entire generations of females. It catalysed womens’ right activism and was a hallmark case that recognised the autonomy of women: once exclusively affirmed for the seen-to-be superior United States males (maybe not so true for the males of other colours back then).
Now, to answer the question of: “what happened?”. I think it is clear that such a response would only be appropriate in the American context and in any country as liberal as the States, and you would agree that such a show of anger by interrupting a Supreme Court Judge’s dinner (and anyone else’s dinner) amounts to harassment in Singapore’s terms. The Singaporean is accustomed in living in comfort, but this episode is in essence a screening of what would happen when systems fail the masses. For those who say that change could and should be brought about through less aggressive means, it might be a little naive to claim so when we’re viewing the news reports in amusement at the comfort of our homes. This case is, of course, a longstanding and polarising topic that lies along partisan lines and the trenches go deep and wide. With the current Roberts court, three of Trumps’ nominees: Justices Gorsuch, Barrett and Kavanaugh formed part of the five needed for a majority to overturn Roe v. Wade. Of particular importance is the fact that Supreme Court nominees in the States are currently a lifelong term, and leadership are more often than not afraid to unseat these lifelong appointees out of fear of partisan accusals for tarnishing the independence of the judiciary: the separation of branches are very crucial to the American system. This means that the course of the American society for the next 50 years are decided by appointees from the current times.
When you have people in power that were not voted in nor elected through the democracy that the very American system promises, this broken promise affects livelihoods, and in case, the lives of the Mother and her children. I do feel sorry for the average American entrenched in and implicated by partisan battles and the politicisation of body autonomy. Nonetheless, if history and recency has served to teach us valuable lessons, its that changes to power can no longer be brought about merely through words or over a cup of tea. Lest we forget the liberation of Germany in 1945, the overthrowing of the Ceaucescu’s in 1989, the Kosovo War in 1999, the military coup d’etat of Myanmar in 2021, and the most recent Sri Lankan civil unrest just months ago, these are material evidences of the human history nudging us and pointing us to the scale of efforts it takes to effect a change in power. Certainly, I’m not saying that activism over this decision will result in bloodshed, but it is to show that this is one of history’s little lessons: the masses will respond.
So what changed today that made the Courts rule against the initial decision? With the assumption that the Court also operated under the belief of consequentialism (as any self-respecting court should), then it would be fair to further question: is condemning abortion morally right today?
For the American context, I simply do not know anymore: what is once logical and morally right to the average American have been overturned and flipped on its head through political fires. [Research]https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/13/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-abortion-should-be-legal-in-all-or-most-cases-2/ have shown that a majority of the general population still holds that abortion should be legal in most or all cases. This would appear to be a situation where judicial judgements don’t align with the sentiments of the majority, and such cases are increasingly rare today. It is perhaps more interesting that there is a sizable portion of the American populace that find abortion to be morally wrong. But, with neutrality as one of the values underpinning the American courts, it certainly should be morally wrong that matters of human autonomy are reduced to political activism and then debated in an apex court where the appointees from one party outnumbers the other.
The Average Singaporean would agree that enabling abortion remains a moral right independent of the United States decisions. Abortion in the Singapore context is vastly different, but what is same with the ruling on Roe v. Wade in 1973 was the understanding that codifying abortion into the law is a major step towards championing womens’ rights and body autonomy. Even today, a woman’s autonomy is given considerable weight in enabling women’s development here in Singapore. Thus, it would only make sense to conclude that if one day, abortion rights were no longer guaranteed, the decision would be just as destructive here as it is currently in the States. And, seen in this light, it is certainly a relief that the Singapore Courts choose to adopt the values Independence and Propriety as part of the principles underscoring our judicial system. Of particular note is the value of propriety, reflecting that rulings and decisions should be morally right.
Indeed, our status quo agrees that codifying and enabling abortion has been and remains morally correct, and perhaps we are glad (debatable though!) that the Singapore system chooses to keep its values and beliefs as-is, where maintaining progress once achieved seems to be something that the Singapore system gets right at every turn.
In modern terms, that means “no unexpected funny business” and U-turns unlike the uncertainty in the States, although I suppose that is the side-effect of partisanship being at the helm of a country’s progress. Fortunately in Singapore, one of the benefits of a self-respecting, well-run and developed single-party state is that we don’t get such shenanigans. May I propose to have “no funny business” as part of our government’s promise, just because it would indeed be funny business for a state that takes itself seriously, and sometimes just too seriously.