One Nation, Now Divisible

When is a nation merely a collection of states? How about now?

The U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization authorizes each state to have the final word on women’s healthcare choices. Now states have the final word, not women, and not the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, instead of being the final authority on this basic question of self-determination, asks each individual state to control that decision. This means these decisions are based on political beliefs. Decisions about liberty and freedom are now political decisions, not judicial decisions.

Dobbs is nothing less then a restriction on a woman’s autonomy. Just as important, however, is its effect on our nation as a unity of states, indivisible.

One of the rarely mentioned problems with Dobbs is that it further fractures an already fractured nation. We may ask what other decisions the U.S. Supreme Court will offload onto the states until each state becomes a nation unto itself. We already see the conflict and confusion caused by the Dobbs decision.

Of all our historical documents, none contain so concise and clear a statement about what collectively we stand for as our Pledge of Allegiance:

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

We still say this pledge before public and official meetings begin, in schools, in important ceremonies, on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July and on other occasions. The Pledge is a reminder of our patriotism on behalf of this country and reminds us that everyone should expect to be free and treated justly. And, most importantly, that we are one nation and not divisible.

Captain George Thatcher Balch, a former Union officer, authored an earlier version of our Pledge in 1885. The first version read:

“We give our heads and our hearts to God and our country; one country, one language, one flag.”

Colonel Balch authored the first version as a way of trying to cement a union fractured by the Civil War.

After Dobbs, what Lincoln worked so hard to salvage, our union, now is torn asunder.