Safety
No. 11 | 2022
Barak and Miri Rozenvaine, Wild Flight, 2020.
THERE’S SAFETY AND THEN THERE’S SAFETY
I don’t feel safe when I…
go to synagogue (or even when I think about going to synagogue)
drop my kids off at school
imagine the impact of the Jan 6 hearings
send my 16-year-old and his friends out into the world on a Saturday night
listen to, read, or watch anything regarding Roe V Wade
realize that Amy Coney Barrett voted to validate an interpretation of the Constitution that might have had her (or any woman) imprisoned for speaking in public about their right to vote.
I’ve felt unsafe before.
I’m a woman. The threat of sexual assault lingers in parking lots, on sidewalks, in my unlocked car, and at my house at night.
I’m Jewish. And because my formal Jewish education took place in the 70s and 80s, I’m used to watching on repeat reels of Jewish bodies being bulldozed into mass graves. As you might imagine, GenX Jews carry our epigenetic trauma in a heavily imaginative, ever-present way, like damp laundry on a line.
The Pandemic had me feeling defenseless for years.
But this unsafety is different.
Because I’m not resigned to it. Because it feels more unjust. Because when the right to carry a concealed weapon, lay siege to our capital, or even abolish women’s choice and render us powerless over our own bodies, overwhelms our collective and fundamental right to life, liberty, and happiness…well, that’s a special kind of fright.
CONSTITUTIONAL SAFETY IS…WHAT.
My son asked me yesterday, “What are the next steps? How do we reverse the court’s decisions on Choice and Gun Control?”
Sadly, I had to tell him that we don’t. That we’d have to introduce another amendment to the Constitution and lobby for it (maybe under the guise of another ERA). But in the meantime, we also have to ensure the integrity of the court’s 2015 ruling on gay marriage as well as the 1965 ruling on the right to purchase contraception.
Then he asked what exactly the Constitution does say about American citizens’ rights to safety. A BIG question, right?
There’s this (from the 14th Amendment): “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
And this: “The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures . . . ."
Of course, there’s also the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (passed in 2009 and constitutionally mandated by the legislative and executive branches), which proclaims that “All Americans have a fundamental right to feel safe in their communities.”
And Michelle Goodwin just pointed out in Sunday’s New York Times that “mandated, forced or compulsory pregnancy contravenes enumerated rights in the Constitution, namely the 13th Amendment’s prohibition against involuntary servitude and protection of bodily autonomy, as well as the 14th Amendment’s defense of privacy and freedom.”
I could go on. And you can check out the Bill of Rights Institute. But isn’t the primary ideological impulse of America, safety? Like, safety to be who you are?
I’m Pollyana, I know. I wish I had a way to tie this up into a neat bow. A conclusion. A Call to Action. A framework within which to position how the American Proposition has failed so many of us. But all I have is what I already said — “when the rights to carry a concealed weapon, lay siege to our capital, or even abolish women’s choice and render us powerless over our own bodies, overwhelms our collective and fundamental right to life, liberty and happiness…well, that’s a special kind of jump scare. “
Read Michelle Goodwin on Reproductive Justice in the Constitution
Next post soon.
In the meantime, email me at drcarala@gmail.com. Still…SO. MUCH. LOVE.
