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Thursday, June 14, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION
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W
hen we think about the
liberal bastions of the
world, there are several
countries that tend to come to mind,
including countries like Norway,
Sweden and Denmark. It is very
rare that someone names Ireland, a
country almost synonymous with
Catholic values, as a part of a list of
socially liberal countries. However,
Ireland has been making leaps
forward in matters of inclusivity and
human rights in the past few years. In
a world where right-wing populism
seems to be coming from every corner,
maybe we should look to Ireland as a
model for our path forward.
On May 25 the Republic of Ireland
held a referendum on whether to
repeal the Eighth Amendment to their
constitution detailing the country’s
strict restrictions on abortion. The
Eighth Amendment was added to
the Irish Constitution in 1983 after a
referendum vote. This amendment
was painted as equal protection of
the right to life for mother and baby
and prohibited abortion in most
cases. Some of the few exceptions
that allowed for abortion under this
law included danger to the physical
or mental health of the mother, rape
and fatal health issues for the fetus. It
isn’t surprising that a country with an
over 78 percent Catholic population
had such strict laws about abortion. It
is, however, surprising that this same
country voted with a 66 percent majority
to repeal the Eighth Amendment and
subsequent ban on abortion.
This massive step forward in
women’s rights issues for Ireland is
less surprising when looking back
at the last couple of years in Ireland.
In 2015, Ireland became the first
country in the world to vote for the
legalization of same-sex marriage by
referendum, by 62 percent. Less than
a month later, Ireland elected Leo
Varadkar, an openly gay man, as the
prime minister. Varadkar was also
Ireland’s youngest prime minister
in history and half Indian. All this
progress, followed by last week’s
decision to lift the ban on abortion,
makes it clear: Ireland is not being left
in the past any longer.
Much of this positive change
comes during a time of overwhelming
negativity
in
the
world.
Great
Britain voted to exit the European
Union in 2016 by a majority of 52
percent following a long campaign
of isolationism and xenophobia.
Less than a year later, France faced
an intense election season between
Marine Le Pen and Emmanuel
Macron. Though Macron won in
a landslide with 66 percent of the
vote, Le Pen still managed to run
in the primary with an extremist
conservative
agenda.
This
all
happening in conjunction with the
United States’ experiment with right-
wing populists and nationalism with
the election of Trump.
The world often seems to be
slipping back in time when it comes to
seemingly outdated laws and policies.
At the beginning of May, Iowa
approved the strictest abortion law in
the country, making abortion nearly
impossible once a fetal heartbeat has
been detected. Meanwhile, on May 29
the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the
dispute over a 2015 law from Arkansas
that made pill-induced abortions
illegal. These policies come from a
government led by politicians like
Vice President Pence, who is known
for his anti-abortion stance. In 2016
Pence signed a bill as the governor
of Indiana that would severely limit
women’s access to abortion, even
in cases where the child would be
born with disabilities. This decision
was overturned in April by a federal
appeals court, but still shows us
exactly what our country’s second-in-
command believes.
Ireland seems to be on an upswing
right now and is making big strides
in a short amount of time that will
hopefully continue. However, it is
important to remember how quickly
that can change. Many of us thought
that the United States might have
been in a similar place when Barack
Obama was elected as our first Black
president or when gay marriage was
legalized nationally. Unfortunately,
directly following those few years
of progress came the election of
President Trump and a rise in open
racism and misogyny.
Ireland is not perfect and still has
a long way to go in issues of equality,
particularly when it comes to issues
of race and disability. However, in
a world that can often feel like it’s
falling apart, it’s reassuring to know
that progress is still being made in a
different corner of the world.
ETHAN KESSLER | COLUMN
EMMA CHANG
Editorial Page Editor
EMMA RICHTER
Managing Editor
Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz
Samantha Goldstein
Elena Hubbell
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram
Jeremy Kaplan
Sarah Khan
Magdalena Mihaylova
Ellery Rosenzweig
Jason Rowland
Anu Roy-Chaudhury
Alex Satola
Ali Safawi
Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger
Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board.
All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.
ASIF BECHER
Editor in Chief
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
AUDREY GILMOUR| COLUMN
Progress abroad
Audrey Gilmour can be reached at
audreymg@umich.edu.
A state divided
L
iving in Orange County,
California,
one
is
constantly
reminded
of the paradoxical political
climate. Here – the county
Ronald Reagan described as
the place “where all the good
Republicans go to die,” the home
to none other than Richard
Nixon and the electoral district
in which Hillary Clinton broke
a seven decade-long conservative
streak – conservative ideology
stands tall. Here in California, the
state legislature and executive
branch are controlled exclusively
by Democrats while the number
of state-registered Independents
recently overtook the number of
state-registered Republicans.
The same partisan dichotomy
is no less apparent on the issue
of immigration. Late last year,
California Gov. Jerry Brown
signed into law Senate Bill 54,
transforming
California
into
the country’s most extensive
“sanctuary
state.”
Orange
County, host to nearly a tenth of
California’s illegal immigrants,
reacted by signing onto the
lawsuit against the state of
California proposed by President
Donald Trump’s administration.
By linking arms with the federal
government, Orange County has
fanned the flames of what has
proved to be an acrimonious
debate on immigration.
While California has cleverly
skirted some technicalities with
S.B. 54, conservatives are right
that the law affronts federal
legitimacy.
Sacramento’s
conciliatory approach to illegal
immigration, however, is in
the spotlight for all the wrong
reasons.
Legal
defiance
of
the
Trump
administration’s
immigration approach should
be highlighted, instead, for
what
it
reveals:
troubling
inadequacy on the part of the
federal government in search of
effective immigration policy.
Generally,
immigration
is
a matter that should be left
to the federal government.
Not
only
is
Congress
constitutionally
entrusted
with
the
naturalization
of
immigrants, but immigration is
a pivotal component of foreign
affairs, a domain also entrusted
to Congress. The reasoning
is sound: A task as complex
and nationally extensive as
immigration would overburden
the states.
That said, states do hold
some discretion over areas of
immigration law where the
federal government has yet
to
produce
comprehensive
policy.
It’s
why
Arizona’s
2010
immigration
law
had
provisions that dealt with the
registration
of
noncitizens
– a matter that had already
been
addressed
by
federal
regulations – struck down; yet
the law saw its components
that
addressed
cooperation
between
state
and
federal
officials – a matter outside of
contemporary federal policy –
upheld. The reasoning behind
this is also sound: Federal laws
hold preeminence over state
ones, but power must also be
balanced between state and
national government, as per
the U.S. Constitution.
California’s S.B. 54 does just
that with respect to illegal
immigration,
addressing
realities on the ground that
have
been
overlooked
in
Washington, D.C. As of 2012,
California housed a quarter of
the country’s undocumented
immigrants,
forcing
the
state to address them less
as
a
logistical
anomaly
to
be corrected and more as a
near-permanent
contingent
deserving
of
comprehensive
policy. The sheer number of
undocumented
immigrants
in California, occupants who
neither receive the intangible
benefits of legal status nor
pay respect to the legal path
to citizenship (though many
do, contrary to popular belief,
pay taxes), is an unfortunate
reality for which the blame
partly rests on Congress.
Congress, in failing to pass the
Comprehensive
Immigration
Reform Act of 2007, missed
an opportunity to curtail the
problem of illegal immigration
on two fronts. The act would’ve
cleared a path to citizenship
for millions of undocumented
immigrants already living in
the U.S., eliminating the choice
between mass deportation and
continued subversion of the law,
while also stymieing the flow of
future illegal immigration via
tightened border security.
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