Political science professor Helen Knowles will give 7 p.m. lectures via Zoom on Tuesday, Nov. 30, and Thursday, Dec. 2, on the current abortion cases being decided by the Supreme Court.
Knowles said her intentions are to provide information and context, not to take sides, to increase awareness on details of the landmark case that could impact the Roe v. Wade 1973 decision that made the option of obtaining abortion legal in the United States.
“My feeling is that it's my job to foster a dialogue and to educate people about the different sides without taking a side myself” in her presentations, Knowles said. “I’m strongly, strongly of the view that it’s the role of the professor, particularly of a political science professor, not to try and impose their views on students.”
She also hopes that attendees get a good sense of how important this issue is “for understanding the U.S. Supreme Court as it is today.”
Knowles’ presentations connect with the Supreme Court hearing all arguments in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case on Dec. 1 that, according to Knowles, will challenge the existence of Roe v. Wade.
“When Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, it was immediately very controversial, for as many people who liked the decision there were just as many people who didn’t like the decision,” Knowles said, and that has remained a constant in the nearly 50 years since.
Since 1973, the Supreme Court has made decisions that have limited the Roe v. Wade decision over the years and the right for a woman to get an abortion is not as expansive as it was in 1973, Knowles noted. She also noted that the court has become more conservative than in the past and there has been a movement by conservative interest groups and activists to funnel cases up to the Supreme Court that will challenge Roe v. Wade.
When it comes to the political side of things Knowles says both sides are focusing on the human element but the trouble is that the two sides are emphasizing a different understanding of it.
“Democrats emphasize that if you take away the right of a woman to have an abortion and you leave it up to the states, then that’s going to disproportionally affect in a negative way women who are in rural areas, women of very limited financial means, and it will essentially put a major roadblock in their ability to control their reproductive lives,” she said.
Meanwhile, Knowles said, Republicans put the emphasis on the unborn child and the emotional arguments that come with that viewpoint.
On the religious side of things, Knowles is neutral as to whether or not religion should play a role in terms of what activists say, as she feels that someone’s personal religious view whether for or against abortion is a private matter. However, Knowles said, taking religion into the public decision-making breaks the separation of church and state in the U.S. Constitution because public decisions affect everybody and must be accessible to everybody.
“If someone is not a Catholic, they can’t possibly have access to the same understanding of catholic views as a catholic does,” Knowles explained.
Knowles' first lecture on Nov. 30 (viewable via this Zoom link) will come the day before the current case will be heard, so she will explain what the state of the Roe v. Wade law up until that point.
In the second lecture on Dec. 2 (accessible via this Zoom link), Knowles will summarize how the different justices expressed their views about the case in all arguments.
Knowles invites anybody with a general interest in politics that might want to understand what one branch of the government is doing at the moment to attend both lectures.
-- Written by Braylon Noble of the Class of 2021