Republican Senator John Cornyn ruined former President Barack Obama’s argument against Roe v Wade during a Twitter fight over the weekend.
On Friday evening, former President Obama tweeted his disappointment in the ending of Roe v Wade’s abortion access protections. The former leader decried the Supreme Court for reversing the long-standing precedent, calling it an attack on the “freedoms of millions of Americans.”
Obama tweeted, “Today, the Supreme Court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent, it relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues—attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans.”
On Saturday morning, Senator Cornyn responded to the ex-President, saying “Now to Plessy vs Ferguson/Brown vs Board of Education.”
Cornyn was referencing the 1896 decision Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the Supreme Court authorized states to discriminate against people based on race as long as the conditions were “separate but equal”.
In 1954, the Supreme Court heard Brown vs Board of Education, which declared the notion of “separate but equal” to be unconstitutional and reversed the over 50-year old ruling.
The point that Cornyn was making is that, like the new ruling on Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court has reversed incorrect rulings by previous SCOTUS justices in the past. If they hadn’t we would still likely have separate water fountains and restrooms for Whites and People of Color.
Obama’s suggestion that reversing a 50 year old precedent is tantamount to an attack on freedoms could have been applied to the Plessy vs Ferguson case as well, which America now recognizes as racist.
What do you think of Senator Cornyn’s point? Do you think the Supreme Court should be free to reverse their own ruling when they feel it’s appropriate or is Obama right that it’s dangerous for our freedoms to do so?
