Goodbye constitutional right to abortion access
The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear June Medical Services v. Gee, a challenge to Louisiana’s stringent abortion restrictions. There is very little doubt that the conservative majority will use this case to overrule 2016’s Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, allowing states to regulate abortion clinics out of existence. In the process, the Republican-appointed justices will set the stage for the formal reversal of Roe v. Wade. The court’s decision to hear June Medical Services came with the alarming announcement that it will also consider whether to strip doctors of their ability to contest abortion laws in court. These aggressive moves augur an impending demise of the constitutional right to abortion access.
Oh well, it’s only women.
But hey, there was no difference between Clinton and Trump, right?
And I’m sure there will be no difference next year between Trump (or Pence) and the Democrat.
/s, in case anyone needs it.
Wait… overturning a SCOTUS decision from 2016? Whatever happened to stare decisis?
So what’s federalism looking like?
It is always jarring to see people write ” the constitutional right to abortion access” as if there ever was such a thing. It is a right that is constructed in the past two generations with not a great deal of explicit support in the constitution, not much of a foundation for a ‘right’ at all.
Brett Kavanaugh.
And the right wing will argue that Dred Scott was a bad decision, it needed to be overruled, so…put women into sexual slavery because they can find a decision of the Supreme Court that was definitely bad.
If it goes that way, we will be back to pre-Roe days where abortion access was easy in some states and not allowed at all in other states. Guess we will have to go back and slug it out state by state and live for a time with free-states and slave-states again. Think of how upset all the “trans women” will be! They will no doubt devote all their consider funds and political clout to fight for……………oh, never mind.
Naif @#4:
NB: I am not a lawyer. But ever since the time of Moses and his 10 tablets of stone lawmakers have followed the rule that a negative formulation (‘thou shalt not’) is superior to the positive (‘thou shalt’). If it is not proscribed, you have a perfect right to do it.
If the past is any guide, women will just go ahead and take upon themselves a right to do as they please with regard to abortion. They do not need some legislature stuffed full of male career politicians telling them what they can and cannot do with their own bodies.
From a conservative point of view, proscribing a common mass behaviour is never a good idea, as in encouraging the flouting of one law it tends to induce mass disrespect for any and all laws.
southwest88,
Sure. State-by-state. Until, of course, the GOP gains control of the House and Senate and White House again, and then they’ll pass a nationwide ban. Oh wait, I forgot, their longstanding sincere commitment to states’ rights…. oh, I can’t even type the rest of that it’s so ludicrous.
Well, if the creepy Supremes decide stare decisis isn’t important anymore, maybe it could soon be time to revisit Kelo, Heller, and Citizens United, which were all IMHO wrongly decided.
Omar – but abortion isn’t a thing one can simply decide to do as one pleases. The morning after pill is, but only if one can get it.
Screechy, you beat me to it. The ultimate goal of the anti-choice movement is not to have it decided state by state, it is to have that “thou shalt not” enshrined in federal law, and international law. If they get that state-by-state situation again, they will fight until there is nothing left, until they have torn women’s rights (and probably almost everyone else’s with them) to shreds.
Omar,
The significance of it not being explicitly protected is unfolding now – having it stand as a derived right from a SC case puts it on a very different footing. States have always been free to legislate as long as it does not violate Roe versus Wade, just a matter of finding the right angle. Get the right angle, and you set up the right case when the law is challenged.
This here is why I will never understand the ‘Bernie or Bust’ folks.
And THIS is bad enough, but the lower level courts are being stuffed with anti-worker, anti-environmental, anti-anything-I-actually-care about judges.
This country won’t have a CHANCE to recover for decades, even without the great puffy orange thing and its flying monkeys.
If they fight until nothing is left there won’t be a United States… Balkanization will be well under way at that point.
Screechy Monkey and iknklast,
The right wingers would love to ban abortion and birth control access at the federal level, sure. But the state by state fight comes first and that time when Republicans control all three branches of government (they have the Supreme Court already) may be decades in the future if the blue state voter’s get into voting in larger numbers due to the abortion issue. So, it is really up to the younger generations to hold what the boomers and second wave feminists gained.
OB & Naif:
If it is banned wherever, then the task has to be to unban it. But if it is not against the law, free sale of morning-after pills etc becomes a matter of course, as does the freedom of doctors and hospitals to offer it and perform it.
Which makes me wonder what President Pussygrabber’s attitude is to it. Whatever it is, he should include it in his list of advices to randy studs young and old: like, say, himself.
Otherwise (shock, horror!) he could be accused of hypocrisy.
southwest88,
So all those young voters who were told repeatedly that the right to abortion was effectively on the ballot in 2016, but shrugged or said “that’s blackmail!” and stayed home or voted third party are suddenly going to flock to the polls in MIDTERM elections to ensure the House stays Democratic? The “blue state” young voters you refer to won’t even have noticed a difference — abortion access will still be allowed in their states at first, and they’ll take warnings from you and me about how a federal ban is coming about as seriously as they took the threat to Roe v. Wade. Until it’s too late.
Oh, and that’s assuming that the Supreme Court doesn’t just go the extra mile and declare that fetuses are people, therefore under the equal protection clause, all state and federal murder statutes apply to abortions. No new legislation needed!