The revocation of federal protection for Roe v Wade is done. Protesting the Supreme Court will accomplish nothing. This was always going to happen; it was just a matter of time. Federal Protection is weak. All it takes is one weighted Supreme Court, one unbalanced Congress, or one President, to revoke Federal Protections for an established law. What needs to happen, isn't more yelling at one of the branches of the US Government. What needs to happen next is that we need to remember how our system works.
Here's the thing: The Supreme Court acted in a very unsurprising way. It's not the Judiciary Branches' job to maintain the federal protections of an established law. It's their job to protect the laws set forth by the United States Constitution, and any of its Amendments. Roe v Wade was never protected by the Constitution. Neither, for that matter, are Griswold, Lawrence, or Obergefell (gay marriage, gay intimacy, and contraception, respectively). They all have Federal Protection status, which, as said earlier, can be extremely weak.
So, what to do? What's the next step? It's actually very simple. There are a few key takeaways here. The really important words I'm thinking of are “referendum,” “initiative,” and “petition.” “Simplify” might be another good one. All of these federally protected laws have one thing in common: they all involve a desire for autonomy over our own bodies. We should be allowed, regardless of what the states say, what the various parties say, what the churches say; we should all be allowed the right to our own bodies.
However, nowhere in the Constitution is a right to bodily autonomy really established. What needs to happen isn't more protesting. It's Petitioning. We need to use our power as citizens of the United States, to make sure that we get our bodies back. We need to make sure that bodily autonomy stops being merely protected, but rather becomes a Constitutional issue. We need to make this a voter issue, make sure it ends up on a ballot, immediately. This isn't something we can solve unless we all act to solve it.
Contact your local lawmakers. Get the word out.
Stop Protesting. Start Petitioning. Make this happen. It's up to all of us.