Silly season of midterm elections is hard to take seriously. But we have to. Go vote.
We have mantra at work these days: “Please let it be over soon.”
In an election year, or an election week, all the screaming, name-calling, accusations, and portends of doom meld together in one long buzz of hideous sound. Inflation, gas prices, abortion. Lies, facts, election deniers. Campaign emails.
It’s the silly season. So much silliness! I have so many questions! Like why do Donald Trump and Tony Evers keep emailing me and also who is Tony Evers?
Why does Geoff Young keep yelling about Nazis on Twitter? (Does Twitter even still exist?)
Why does the party that’s supposed to elect Democrats not support ... Democrats?
Why does the party of small government want to turn into the miscarriage police?
And that’s where we get serious. Amid all the silly, we need to remember that one of the most serious amendments in Kentucky history is on the line, Amendment 2. It says that nothing in the state Constitution protects a right to abortion. But let’s play this out like dominoes. On Nov. 15, the Kentucky Supreme Court will issue a ruling on the state’s trigger ban, which basically outlaws all abortion without exceptions except for a pregnancy that threatens the life of the mother. If the amendment passes, the court would have a much harder time determining the case on the argument that abortion is protected under the state Constitution’s right to privacy, amid other inalienable rights. If it fails, the court can consider the trigger law on its merits. And then let’s say the amendment passes and the Supreme Court rules in favor of the trigger law. The legislature will feel no pressure to add exceptions like rape and incest exceptions to the existing laws. Instead, they might be emboldened to go after birth control methods like IUDs.
Thanks to a brave woman named Leah Martin, we can also see how that exception about the life of the mother plays out in real time. She wrote a heartbreaking essay this week about her pregnancy — her much-wanted baby was diagnosed with a deadly genetic anomaly, one that would mean certain death for it and possible cancer for her. But a Lexington hospital would not act to help her because the trigger law was too unclear. She was ‘lucky” because in between court battles, there was a week where abortions were legal again, and she was able to obtain one.
Meanwhile, Kentucky’s largest medical association has buckled down under pressure from the General Assembly. As reporter Alex Acquisto wrote “In a state like Kentucky, where broad support of those laws is often buttressed by Christian doctrine rather than peer-reviewed research, many doctors are pinned between their ethical obligation to publicly advocate for patients, and a need to compromise and avoid alienating the political party in power that passes those laws.”
There are many other reasons to get out and vote. Here in Lexington, we have a mayor and city council races that will determine the future of of our city. We have some state House races that can fight back against one party rule. We have some federal races that might, just might, show that we’re more than a deep red province.
Ignore the noise and the silliness of these last few days. Voting is one of the only weapons we have left. It really is deadly serious.
