Before proclaiming oneself to be “pro-life,” it is incumbent upon the person to answer the following question: For whose life?
 
I support the lives of women around the nation and their entitlement to bodily autonomy, because I know that we thrive and our families thrive when we can properly care for ourselves and our families.
 
I support the lives of survivors of sexual assault, for whom we should provide compassionate care rather than sentencing to motherhood on account of punitive legislation that values a 25-day old (or even two day-old) cluster of cells more so than we do a twenty-five year-old woman, especially when the pregnancy is the result of a violent crime.
 
I am for the lives of women who want to become mothers but whose health precludes a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery, and thus who cannot carry their pregnancies to term.
 
I am for the lives of pregnant women seeking to obtain quality and affordable prenatal care, and who should not be denied access to health insurance because of the “preexisting condition” of having been pregnant.  And I am for the soon-to-be babies who will benefit from their mothers having received that medical care, and will suffer in that absence.
 
I am for the lives of the millions of women served by Planned Parenthood, which apart from abortion services delivers access to invaluable contraceptive care, STD testing, and cancer screenings, because early detection is imperative. Moreover, with over half of Planned Parenthood patients relying on Medicaid and still many others being low-income, few alternatives exist for receiving quality women’s health services.
 
I am for the lives of the millions of women around the globe who will suffer as a consequence of the Trump Administration’s reinstatement of the global gag rule and its adverse consequences for a range of health services extending well beyond the domain of abortion.
 
I am for the lives of the millions all across this country who depend on quality, affordable health care, whether for preventive care or for the treatment of preexisting conditions, which 27% of Americans have and thus would be denied health care coverage in the absence of the Affordable Care Act. I am for the lives of those who have been able to access essential care through Medicaid, without which they would be unable to receive treatment, potentially dying as a consequence.
 
I am for the lives of the refugees fleeing war-torn countries in hope of a better life, in a nation where they can thrive away from the devastation and violence of their native land. As a nation of immigrants who preach about the American dream, I believe that while we can be a land of opportunity, such opportunities are rarely obtained through Horatio Alger stories, but rather through a collective commitment to our remembering our nation’s history, and an investment in helping people to rise up and contribute to our society.
 
I am for the lives of those who have committed crimes and for whom many other first-world nations would deem a life sentence to be a worthy punishment, rather than the death penalty. And I am for the lives of those who could have been better protected with tighter regulations on the sales and distribution of guns. 
 
I am for the lives of all who drink the water and breathe the air on which we depend, and for which we require an Environmental Protection Agency to responsibly regulate rather than subject populations to dangerous and life-threatening toxins as we have seen in Flint, Michigan and beyond.
 
I am for life. But I am not simply for life until birth.
 
We could claim that the anti-abortion movement is motivated by hostility to abortion, but were that simply the case, they would support Planned Parenthood’s provision of contraception, which significantly obviates the need for the abortions that they abhor. Indeed, in 2010 alone, publicly funded family planning services helped women to prevent more than 2 million unintended pregnancies. We can claim that they are for the life of the unborn, but were that the case, they would invest in prenatal care to enable a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery (services also, incidentally, offered at Planned Parenthood).
 
We could claim that the anti-abortion movement is about protecting women’s health in the conducting of this procedure. Were that the case, they would not push TRAP laws that serve to ultimately restrict access to one of the safest medical procedures when it is done early and legally. Importantly, restricting abortion access does more to restrict access to medically safe abortions than it does to restrict access to the procedure more generally.
 
We could claim that attacks on Planned Parenthood and the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) are grounded in simply different visions of how best to deliver quality and affordable healthcare to the broadest swath of the American public. Were that true, Republicans in Congress would not have voted in favor of stripping away health insurance absent a viable replacement plan that does not reduce the amount of coverage or the number of individuals covered.
 
Conservatives have opposed health care access for women and for mothers-to-be, thus severely compromising any credibility that they might have in making such claims as to the motivations underlying their attacks on women’s bodies, and on health care access more generally.
 
It is not an attack on abortion. It is an attack on women, and an attack on the poor or otherwise vulnerable.
 
With many counties relying heavily– or in some cases, exclusively – on Planned Parenthood as the safety-net health center providing contraceptive care and other basic services, and with many such individuals having incomes unable to support more expensive care (or the resources to travel farther for those services), by restricting support for this organization we relegate women (especially poor women) to second-class citizenship even in this nation that so often preaches language of equality.
 
With 20 million gaining health insurance under the Affordable Care Act and many benefitting from Medicaid expansion, by stripping away the Act we – while purportedly being pro-life – deny millions the ability to obtain reasonably priced and quality medical care that they gained under President Obama – medical care that could be life saving.
 
Those insisting on the rights of a fertilized egg while failing to protect the health or life of millions of women and children, preaching of “regulatory relief” and “personal responsibility,” and insisting on the necessity of reducing health care access are not pro-life. They are only pro-birth.
 
We cannot simply be a nation that fights for the right to simply be born, but rather must fight for the right to thrive once we are brought into the world. As a nation of immigrants and one that purportedly champions equality and opportunity, it is time that we practice what we preach and halt the rollback care that saves lives and enhances quality of life.
 
If it is true that we measure a society by how it treats its most vulnerable members, those pushing for this legislation have a lot to which they must answer in advance of the 2018 and 2020 elections.

​Mr. Trump is not the first president to have a so-called “enemies list,” though the first such presidency did not end well.

Mr. Trump’s enemies list is long. Mexicans. Muslims. Vanity Fair. The New York Times. The Washington Post. Polls (when unfavorable). Fact-checkers. Democrats. The media broadly construed. Judge Curiel. John Lewis. Meryl Streep. Saturday Night Live. Those requesting his tax returns (not just journalists?).

He has now added an entire branch of government, this branch of course being the judicial branch.

If you think that this is not dangerous, guess again.

The judicial branch was famously characterized by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 78 as the “least dangerous” branch, controlling neither the sword nor the purse, having “neither force nor will; only judgment.” While scholars have debated the extent influence of the judiciary in the separation-of-powers system — whether calling attention to the courts as vehicles for protection of rights, or calling attention to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as being a stronger impetus for desegregation of the American South than was Brown v. Board of Education — it is undeniable that the Supreme Court has served a crucial role in the enforcement of constitutional rights over the decades.

This is enabled in no small part by the fact that the American political system provides for judicial independence — with lifetime appointments and the inability to be removed based on its decisionmaking — thus enabling justices to avoid political pressures that might influence their rulings. It is also enabled by our institutional norm of judicial legitimacy, according to which the branches respect the right of the judicial branch to render the decisions that it does, with respect for the decisionmaking process if not the substance of the outcomes themselves.

To be sure, presidents have spoken out about their views as to the substance of decisions, with President Obama saying publicly that he disagreed with the outcome of Citizens United. But he did not attack the Court or the justices who sit on it. He attacked the particular outcome.
Enter Donald Trump.

The relationship between the Trump Administration and the judiciary has already been one marked by tension, with Kellyanne Conway initially holding that the district court restraining order “really doesn’t affect” the Trump Administration’s implementation of the notorious executive order of prohibiting travel from seven predominantly Muslim nations. While we do not always agree with the outcome of judicial rulings, the rule of law necessitates compliance with them, and appeals procedures are in place in order to challenge adverse actions. This does not, however, obviate the need to comply in the meantime, a norm that initially was not followed.

Following Judge Robart’s determination that there should be a nationwide restraining order with respect to this EO, Mr. Trump in true Trump fashion lashed out on Twitter at the “so-called judge.” While party affiliation would have no bearing on Robart’s legitimacy as a judge, it is worth noting that he was a George W. Bush appointee who was confirmed unanimously. He soon thereafter held (again via Twitter) that in the event of a national security problem, the American people should blame Judge Robart and the court system. Thus, we saw for the first time in modern American history, the President of the United States attacking the judiciary’s legitimacy and scapegoating it in the event of a hypothetical attack, likely setting it up to restrict its independence under conditions of such heightened national security risk. Absent such judicial independence, judges are not free of political pressures in their decisionmaking and thus may operate as inadequate checks on the other branches and intrusions of rights.

So, rather than accepting the outcome and following the appeals process, he filed the appeal and engaged in a Twitter tirade the compromised the very legitimacy of the branch of government dedicated to the safeguarding of rights that are left in question by the EO and its implementation’s depriving of due process and equal protection under the law. He went on to question what our country is coming to when a judge is able to halt a Homeland Security ban. He further has tweeted insidiously that we are at risk for terror attacks — an effort that like his constant falsehoods about crime rates is with the aim of instilling fear and thus willingness to forego some civil liberties — and thus that courts must act fast.

This shows a fundamental lack of understanding of, and appreciation for, the important role that courts play in our political process. The business of courts is not to act quickly, but rather to be a slower-moving political authority that is not acting out of political expediency, but rather in defense of the constitutional principles that are dangerously under attack currently between the EO and Mr. Trump’s frequent attacks on the media.

When appealing Judge Robart’s order, the Trump Administration further went on to hold, “A reviewing court would not be well-equipped to ascertain the quantum of risk, or what is a reasonable margin of error in assessing risk… Judicial second-guessing of the President’s national security determination in itself imposes substantial harm on the federal government and the nation at large.”

Liberty and security could conceivably be in tension with one another at times, which is why times of national security crisis typically coincide with stronger presidential powers and some degree of constraint on liberties (e.g., the Patriot Act). The Supreme Court’s role is largely the guardian of liberty and it is worth emphasizing also that the ban is not targeting countries from which Americans have suffered particularly, thus raising important questions as to any validity of a national security exception to the claims that his administration makes.

What is perhaps most striking about the Administration’s statement is the notion that judicial second-guessing of the president’s national security determinations is harmful.

“Judicial second-guessing” of the other branches is the job description of judges and justices, and has been since Justice John Marshall famously declared in 1803 in Marbury v. Madison that “it is emphatically the province and the duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” Indeed, this check on presidential (and legislative) powers is an essential protection of the separation of powers, guarding citizens’ rights against government encroachments of which the Framers were concerned.

Perhaps before Mr. Trump seeks to “make America great again,” he should make Marbury great again.

Those defending Mr. Trump have similarly mischaracterized the critical role that the judicial branch serves in American politics. Mike Huckabee said on Fox that the executive branch historically “has emasculated itself by surrendering constantly to the idea that once the court says something, that’s it. It’s the law of the land… The court can’t make law. They cannot legislate.”

While it is true that legislation is pursued through Congress, the elected branch, and it is true that the judiciary relies on the other branches for the implementation of its decisions, judicial holdings create binding precedent, laws contrary to the Constitution are deemed invalid, and the American political system has a norm of compliance with such holdings, lest we compromise the very fabric of the rule of law governing our society.

There have been all too many moments of the Trump transition and early days of the presidency in which Mr. Trump and his advisors showed a frightening lack of understanding of the role of the president (a fact to which even John Yoo recently called attention) and the powers of administrative agencies in the separation of powers system. While one might find reasons to characterize their statements about the judiciary as being reflections of ignorance, it appears instead to be more deeply pernicious than that. (It is all the more egregious to millions that the man who is this ignorant about, and hostile to, the courts has been given the capacity to fill the seat left vacant by the passing of Justice Scalia, and kept vacant amid the Senate Republicans’ refusal to so much as grant Judge Merrick Garland a hearing.)

Never before has American government seen such a nefarious hostility to the institutions protecting these rights. While President Roosevelt provides a salient example of executive-judicial conflict, it is worth noting that President Roosevelt sought to expand protections of rights amid the New Deal, whereas the Court at that time was striking such protections invalid. As things stand currently, with undemocratic moves being made throughout the executive branch — whether the dissemination of falsehoods, the attacks on the media, the marked corruption, lack of transparency, and imposition of likely unconstitutional executive orders — and an all-too-obsequious and enabling legislative branch of the same party control, the courts stand currently as the sole buffer against further intrusion into fundamental democratic principles.

​It is not hard to imagine why the Trump Administration would be so hostile to them. It is also not difficult to see why it is so dangerous.
​
It is up to us as citizens to be all the more vigilant to guard these ever-more-fragile rights before they are long gone.