A federal judge in Mississippi struck down the state’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks.
U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves, in Jackson, wrote a sharply worded rebuke of the law, calling it a deliberate attempt by the state to ask the newly conservative-majority Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that established a woman’s legal right to abortion.
At one point, he said the Mississippi legislature’s “professed interest in ‘women’s health’ is pure gaslighting.”
“The State chose to pass a law it knew was unconstitutional to endorse a decades-long campaign, fueled by national interest groups, to ask the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade,” Reeves wrote in his ruling. “With the recent changes in the membership of the Supreme Court, it may be that the State believes divine providence covered the Capitol when it passed this legislation. Time will tell.”
We know what the Supreme Court is going to do.
In his conclusion, Reeves wrote about how he, as a man, could not imagine “the anxiety and turmoil” a woman might endure when deciding whether to get an abortion.
“The fact that men, myself included, are determining how women may choose to manage their reproductive health is a sad irony not lost on the Court,” Reeves wrote.
Women? Are we allowed to say that?
This is a tremendous victory for the rights of pregnant people to make their own personal medical decisions. https://t.co/6gc9ky1dWA
— Cecile Richards (@CecileRichards) November 21, 2018
Comments
2 responses to “The Mississippi legislature is gaslighting”
But shouldn’t men have a say, since they can apparently be pregnant people?
I can’t decide whether “womxn” would be more offensive than “pregnant people” or not (they’re both horrible). And when the Hell is Mississippi going to fix that state flag?!