How Far Will the Anti-Choice Supreme Court Go?
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization which could potentially overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the two linchpins of abortion-rights protections.
A the heart of this is a Mississippi law, which bans most abortions after 15 weeks, that was blocked by lower courts. But anti-abortion advocates hope that the new conservative majority on the Supreme Court will deliver a favorable ruling and have tailored the language used to avoid past losses.
Based on questions asked and statements made during the hearing, many observers believe the justices will issue a ruling either directly or effectively removing the federal government involvement in this issue.
https://twitter.com/djrothkopf/status/1466147398158331907?s=20
Some observers think the court will rule in Mississippi’s favor while not explicitly overturning earlier decisions. That’s the optimistic viewpoint, one that discounts the bellicosity of core GOP activists.
If Roe v Wade is still alive, even in name only, GOP pragmatists hold that it’s more difficult to use the issue as a galvanizing force for Democrats in 2022 and 2024. And the court can always build on their half-decision at some future date. I’m not sure that will make the Republican Sedition Caucus happy.
The worst case scenario would mean having the court identify a fetus as a rights-holding person under the 14th Amendment, making abortion unconstitutional everywhere.
The Guttmacher Institute estimates 26 states (including Mississippi) will implement complete bans on abortion based on a ruling not completely gutting Roe v. Wade. .
We are unlikely to know the court’s opinion on this case until next June, if history is any guide. And while commentary on this issue is focused on women’s issues relating to pregnancy terminations, there are serious implications for a raft of legal decisions going way beyond a woman’s right to choose.
Mississippi’s lawyers have made arguments downplaying any potential ripple effects of a decision in their favor, saying the “purposeful termination of a potential life” makes abortion different than other constitutionalized privacy interests.
From the Scotus Blog:
But a “friend of the court” brief supporting the state argues that the effects would be much more expansive than Mississippi suggests. The brief filed by Texas Right to Life (whose counsel of record, Jonathan Mitchell, was the architect of Texas’ six-week abortion ban) tells the justices that the court’s decision in Loving v. Virginia, establishing the right to interracial marriage, would survive if Roe were overruled because the Civil Rights Act of 1866 “provides all the authority needed” to strike down a state law banning interracial marriage.
However, the group adds, the court’s decisions in Lawrence v. Texas, striking down a Texas law prohibiting gay sex, and Obergefell v. Hodges, holding that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage, would necessarily fall because they are “as lawless as Roe.”
https://twitter.com/KSVesq/status/1466078185804681222?s=20
The legal cases involved in legalizing abortions built on other Supreme Court rulings made on the basis of protecting privacy.
The court’s 1965 ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut marked the beginning of an era of change for sexual and reproductive rights in the United States, overturning a law criminalizing the use of birth control by married couples.
This landmark decision established — for the first time — a constitutional right to privacy regarding reproductive decisions, one that paved the way for the legalization of birth control for unmarried couples (Eisenstadt v. Baird) and legal abortion (Roe v Wade).
The significance of the Griswold v Connecticut decision, via Planned Parenthood:
In 1965, at the time of the Griswold decision, 32 women were dying for every 100,000 live births in America. Today, the rate is less than half that. Infant mortality has fallen even faster: from 25 deaths to six deaths per 1,000 live births.
Access to birth control has also helped people to lead healthier lives across the board. People take the pill for a variety of reasons. In fact, 58% of all women who use the pill rely on it, at least in part, for something other than pregnancy prevention — including endometriosis, cramps, or even acne.
Thanks in part to the ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut, and the possibilities the decision created, birth control has had a dramatic impact on individuals and families in this country — allowing people to invest in their futures and their careers and giving them time to plan for their families.
https://twitter.com/KGeee/status/1466054887716892679?s=20
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Let’s jump back for a moment. The breadth of this Supreme Court ruling will likely establish a basis for reversing overturned laws on non-heterosexual sex and gay marriage.
It could even force reconsideration of whether interracial marriages were legal in the states.
And you have to realize the right’s attacks on reproductive freedom won’t stop with abortion. Blocking access to birth control will be their next target.
This will stem from a legalistic version of the "contraceptive mentality" argument popular in anti-choice circles, holding that contraception causes abortion by convincing people that non-procreative sex is acceptable. If people only had sex for procreation and within the bounds of heterosexual marriage, the argument goes, then there would be no need for abortion.
In recent years, anti-choice groups have sought to falsely conflate some types of birth control with abortion “as a way to undermine access to birth control.” By selectively embracing the ‘personhood’ argument—saying U.S. policy should in some circumstances recognize pregnancy as beginning at fertilization— they are working to undermine access to birth control.
That strategy was central to arguments in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the 2014 Supreme Court case granting some employers an exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) contraceptive coverage guarantee.
As Molly Jong-Fast spelled out in Vogue:
“The moment abortion advocates have always warned about is here,” says Renee Bracey Sherman, executive director of We Testify, an organization dedicated to the leadership and representation of people who have abortions. “It’s always been here. Politicians who are anti-abortion are also anti–birth control and anti-queer and anti-Black because at the end of the day, they only support a way of life in which they—wealthy white people—are in charge and they are the sole dictators of when, how, and with whom we have sex, procreate, and build our families.
It’s about maintaining white patriarchal power and control. It always has been. And anything that allows people to determine their own futures—such as birth control and abortion—is a threat to that.”
Look, Republicans are smart(ish), so they’re not going to take away your birth control pills, they’re just going to continue to blur the line between abortion and birth control.
And do you know why that is? Because abortion was never about life for these Republicans. These were the people who argued that your grandmother should be willing to die for the Dow Jones Industrial Average when it came to COVID lockdowns. These are the people who believe in the death penalty. No, this isn’t about life, this is about power. Republicans want to blur the line between birth control and abortion because they want the power to control what happens to women’s bodies.
https://twitter.com/RepValDemings/status/1466142681877426186?s=20
THIS is at the root of what Make America Great Again is all about. The only question remaining is whether people are willing to accept turning back the clock in this fashion. Although Americans say they’re okay with all these things the right is seeking to eliminate, the reality is that our media will attempt to normalize what should be considered an abomination against the progress of humanity for a saner world.
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