Progress in shadow

 Timing is everything, people say, and what a concept that is. On the one hand, it's often a great explainer of good fortune; on the other, it just as often outlines the madness of the world in blazing neon.

Case in point: Title IX and the striking down of Roe v. Wade.

The former's 50th anniversary was just the other day, and thank God for it. It mandated that schools had to show  progress in gender equity if they wanted to get their hands on federal dollars, and among other effects it brought about a sea change in women's athletics.

Thanks primarily to Title IX, women's sports went from coaches driving the team van and washing the team uniforms -- or, on the high school level, having no interscholastic sports at all -- to at least semi-equal footing with the men. 

Not equal footing, mind you. Not with the men who still overwhelmingly run athletic departments griping about it ("Dammit, we had to get rid of wrestling because of women's field hockey, even though it costs nothing compared to football and men's hoops"), or paying mere lip service to it. (See: The women's Final Four last year, where the amenities looked like something you'd get from a rest stop vending machine.)

But progress has been made, and for one day it was celebrated. And then, the next day, the Supreme Court put that progress in shadow by striking down Roe v. Wade, blowing up 50 years of settled law that acknowledged women might actually be more than just Petri dishes for growing babies.

The Supremes -- at least three of whom perjured themselves in their confirmation hearings -- said, nah, sorry, ladies. We're gonna kick this back to the several states, which can treat you as Petri dishes if they want. We don't care one way or the other.

Now there's some timing for ya, by gumphrey. 

On the one hand, we live in a country that occasionally does have a conscience where women are concerned, even if it happens mostly by accident. On the other, we also live in a country whose highest court believes it's the inherent right of any state to dictate the private medical decisions of women -- effectively, in the most extreme cases, making them state property as soon as they become pregnant.

And what a perfectly Soviet concept that is. 

In any event, it's one step forward, two steps back, as former Notre Dame women's basketball coach Muffet McGraw pointed out yesterday. God bless America the Schizoid.