Glamour abandons all logic in piece on Roe
June 27, 2022
We’re really not sure whether we should laugh or worry at this from Glamour. We do realize that the overturning of Roe v. Wade has made any number of people worried and/or excited but we can’t see that the event means we should abandon all logic. This is what Glamour seems to be doing as it considers what can be done now.
As a result of the new ruling, they ponder what should, or could, be done by the Supreme Court to make sure that such disasters don’t happen again. Apologies for the long quote, but it’s necessary to grasp its mistake:
One way experts, including those on Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court, said the court could be improved is by limiting its power in the first place.
“The Court serves as an important counterweight to majoritarian impulses, safeguards the Constitution, and helps ensure the rule of law,” the panel wrote. “But others argue that the Supreme Court has exerted too much power in our system of constitutional governance by interfering with or taking control of matters that should be resolved by the elected branches and the political process. Under this view, the Court has emerged as an obstacle to the realization of important social goals and undermined the ability of Congress and other political actors to protect rights.”
Now we agree with the logic there. Not necessarily that this should happen, but that would be one way of reducing the Supreme Court’s influence. Simply reduce the number of subjects upon which the court has influence and push more of life back into the realm of politics and democracy, not rights and the constitution.
What leaves us undecided whether to laugh or worry is of course that this is just what has happened. The Supreme Court has, essentially, said abortion is nothing to do with us – it’s a matter of politics and democracy. Which is, of course, the very thing that Glamour and others are complaining about.
Glamour is a part of the Conde Nast empire and clearly has the resources to be able to avoid these sorts of mistakes. If only it did while servicing some 10 million visits a month it gains. True, most of these come for the fashion and, well, glamour, but some are clearly influenced by the political pieces as this one.
Glamour is proposing as the solution – less Supreme Court involvement in life, more politics and democracy – the very thing that’s giving it conniption fits in the first place. What are we supposed to do at this point, laugh or worry over their collective sanity?