The Colonization of “American Values”

a Neo-Aristotelian Comparison of Ronald Reagan’s Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation, and the Overturning of Roe v. Wade

Abstract

Today, as we face the overturning of the Roe decision almost 40 years later, the modern conservative political landscape has successfully colonized the meaning of the “conscience of the nation,” cleansing it of intersectionality, defining within it the appropriate and the obscene; weaponizing it as a way to alienate those who do not conform to white, male, able-bodied, heterosexual norms. Sex, freedom, and transparent rhetoric have been displaced into the realm of theory and thought, and have become an unpalatable ideology within American law. This paper will use a Neo-Aristotelian approach to analyze the value system at play in Reagan’s essay in order to reveal how a preconceived, fossilized notion of “American Values” is being applied to modern law through Justice Alito’s initial draft in the Court’s opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.