Despite apparently good intentions, the U.S. Supreme Court has accounted for—directly or indirectly—numerous deaths, for which I believe they should be held responsible. Three of their recent rulings have drawn widespread criticism from the medical community and others, and all of their lethal health consequences have been quantitatively estimated in a recent published study.
I refer specifically to the court’s decisions referring to abortion rights, handgun-carry restrictions, and nullification of workplace protections against viral spread.
This scientific study has tabulated the likely lethal outcomes emanating from these decisions:
Decision 1: Overturning Roe v Wade’s abortion rights. For the Dobbs ruling, the model assessed unwanted pregnancy continuations, resulting from the change in distance to the closest abortion facility, as well as excess deaths (and peripartum complications) from forcing these forced pregnancies to term. This model projected that 76, 612 fewer abortions will occur nationwide annually, primarily originating from those states imposing such strict bans. From these latter states, they estimate 6 to 15 additional pregnancy-related deaths each year, and hundreds of additional cases of peripartum associated illnesses.
All data clearly recognize that mortality and illness is far less when associated with abortions occurring in a recognized medical facility, as compared with those complications resulting from normal full-term deliveries.
Decision 2: Firearm-related deaths. New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Inc v Bruen, Superintendent of New York State Police (Bruen), which voided state laws restricting handgun carry. As a result of this decision, published estimates of the consequences of right-to-carry laws were applied to 2020 firearm-related deaths (and injuries) in 7 affected jurisdictions. The model also projected that the court’s decision to end handgun-carry restrictions will result in at least 152 additional firearm-related deaths annually. This appeared to expand the previous Court’s “Heller” decision from the year 2008, that had already interpreted the Second Amendment to extend guarantees to an individual right to possess firearms independent of service in a state militia, which included self-defense within the home. In so doing, it endorsed the so-called “individual-right” theory of the Second Amendment’s meaning and rejected a rival interpretation, the “collective-right,” i.e. that right restricted to “militias.”
Decision 3: The probable health consequences of Supreme Court decision in 2022 that invalidated COVID-19 workplace protections. In this decision the analytical modeling study projected that this ruling to invalidate COVID-19 workplace protections was associated with 1402 deaths in early 2022, and the general consensus has also projected a far greater death and illness toll nationwide, both past and present.
CONCLUSION
Although exact numbers will never be established, there is little doubt that many lives could have been saved were it not for these—ill advised in my opinion—Supreme Court decisions!