Abortion of Tribal Sovereignty and Enhancing Authoritarianism

The US government’s supreme court issued its decision denying the right of women to make decisions about their health and childbearing rights leaving the determination up to the state government. For two hundred years it has been the law in the United States that crimes involving American Indians may fall under state government authority only if the US Congress passed a law permitting such state authority.

Five days after giving power of state governments over women’s health and childbearing right on 29 June that same court decided that a state government could exercise jurisdiction of crimes involving Indians. Ignoring legal precedent and ignoring history as well as the long-recognized sovereignty of Indian nations the American court decided not the law but personal political opinion of five judges in favor of “states’ rights.”

This decision continued the US government’s erosion of tribal sovereignty favoring non-Indian rights over American Indian rights. In other words, this decision ignores precedent, advances states’ rights, and promotes white supremacy.

The decision of the US Supreme Court in the Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta case reversing a key element of the 2020 McGirt decision that recognized the authority of the Muscogee and Cherokee nation sovereignty is a warning that the current court will move quickly to undermine tribal sovereignty across the country.

In July 2020, the American supreme court handed down a 5-4 decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, stating that Congress had not explicitly disestablished the Muscogee (Creek) Nation reservation.

In doing so, much of eastern Oklahoma including the city of Tulsa with a population of more than 400,000 is Indian Country and crimes involving Natives in these lands are to be prosecuted by tribal and federal courts, not the state. To claim jurisdiction and reduce tribal sovereignty the governor of Oklahoma pressed the case and the court granted jurisdiction to the state government.

The US Supreme Court has not frequently been considered a key determinant globally for statements about rights, but the 24 June 2022 decision of the Court in Dobbs v. Jackson reversing the constitutionally protected right to abortion and its 29 June decision undermining tribal sovereignty strengthens authoritarian governments and nullifies indigenous nations’ ancestral sovereignty over their lands and their people.

The six-member reactionary supreme court effectively ignores precedent or what lawyers refer to as Stare decisis. It “reduces incentives for challenging settled precedents, saving parties and courts the expense of endless relitigation.” Instead of relying on what is called “settled law” on which the people can depend for consistency, the current court is made up of judges in the majority who have decided that “law will mean what we want it to mean.” The judges ignore the law and make their decisions based on personal, political, or religious preferences. This conduct in the court opens the door to authoritarian or dictatorship decisions that have nothing to do with the law. Women’s rights are to be dissolved and tribal sovereignty is to be ignored. The court has ruled.

Anti-Indian Movement on the Tribal Frontier