On Second Thought: There ought to be a law

Thanks to the Supreme Court and the Department of Homeland Security, the partisan bonfire should burn hotter than ever for this year's congressional contests.

Not long after the first news of that Supreme Court leak on Roe v. Wade, the Democratic National Committee was running an "Abortion is Healthcare" ad on Facebook with a "chip in to elect Democrats at every level" plea to protect abortion rights, because with a Supreme Court dominated by Republican appointees, rights are always in danger.

Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee has already renamed the Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Board the "Ministry of Truth," in recognition of the Orwellian probabilities for a government agency explicitly charged with making sure citizens perusing social media don't get any wrong ideas.

I don't blame anyone who is outraged when a body as extraordinarily unrepresentative of the people as the Supreme Court - two of the last four appointees even went to the same prep school! - makes decisions that bear on matters as personal as reproductive freedom/right to life. That's what Congress, especially the Senate, is for: deliberation on contentious issues by a group of people who, because they represent all of us, can be expected to take account of all points of view.

It is also outrageous that somewhere in the upper echelons of the current administration there is rooted an aggregation of officials insensitive enough to the idea of the First Amendment to think something called a "Disinformation Board" could be anything but an abomination, but again, instead of getting mad at the Democrats now in charge of the executive branch, why not just ask Congress to pass a law?

Clearly, all we have to do is elect Democrats to Congress to safeguard reproductive rights, and Republicans to shore up the First Amendment. Maybe Democrats for the coming session, Republicans next time, or vice versa. Or maybe members of the two parties could come to a resolution on just those two issues, for the good of the order?

However, during the almost 50 years since the Roe v. Wade case, despite continuing public support for a woman's right to make up her own mind about childbirth, through administrations and congressional sessions controlled by Democrats and those controlled by Republicans, somehow no clarifying legislation has become law. Legislation codifying Roe v. Wade passed the House during this session. Despite calls for a Which Side Our You On? show of hands from a few members, neither of two competing Senate bills on reproductive rights is likely to even get a vote.

The Disinformation Board lacks the long history of Roe v. Wade , but it does seem fair to doubt Republican resolve to guarantee a place for all views on our social media. How might the Republican party's current leader-in-exile, known for his objections to "fake news," deploy the powers of a Ministry of Truth if he inherits one? Recent pronouncements from Republican governors and Republican-dominated state legislatures about which books belong on library shelves and which terms are acceptable in school discussions of race or sexuality also raise questions about the measure of Republican devotion to free speech.

Besides, some issues are worth a lot as campaign causes. In recent election cycles, pro life has become a rallying cry for one major political party, reproductive freedom for the other. Ironically, if Republicans have now won by Supreme Court ruling, they may lose points in the coming election on the reproductive rights/pro life issue. Maybe the disinformation/free speech question is something Congress can handle, simply because there is no long-standing partisan divide. However, after four years of Republican efforts to defend a president likely to tweet anything without consideration of informational reality, and Democratic efforts to catch him, don't count on it.

In the 17th century, the Jesuit fathers reported remarkable public assemblies among the peoples living in what later became New England and Maritime Canada. The fathers witnessed debates contentious issue that might continue for days, ending only with some general consensus. We have enough questions - of reproductive rights and birth rights, the commerce of ideas on social media and national security, voting rights and security, of the national history to be passed on in our schools - that call for that kind of national debate. But it's going to take major reforms to create a meeting place, a Congress, where the necessary meeting of minds can occur. In the meantime, we can only expect fragmented action from state legislatures and local school boards, and divisive decisions from courts and administrative officials.

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Will Rawn of Havre is a retired Montana State University-Northern professor.