I think that the governments of the states of Georgia and Alabama are primarily teeing up cases to be heard by the Supreme Court, giving the court opportunities to overturn Roe v. Wade. I doubt that will happen.
I think that the governments of the states of Georgia and Alabama are primarily teeing up cases to be heard by the Supreme Court, giving the court opportunities to overturn Roe v. Wade. I doubt that will happen.
I predicted that with Kavanaugh on the court we have a bit better than 50% chance of Roe being overturned. That goes to 100% if McConnell gets to pick one more.
Steve
These cases seem to attempt to enhance the personhood status of the fetus. Someday soon, I hope someone addresses the right of the prospective mother to kill in self-defense an unwanted internal growth that is seriously threatening her life and health.
The right to self-defense is one of those natural human rights that has always superseded the Constitution itself and need not be inshrined in any law.
I think there is a pretty substantial level of outrage against the Alabama law, at least among my friends and acquaintances. Normally mild-mannered, moderate and conservative women I know are outraged at it – I think it will backfire badly on the pro-life movement.
@Jimbino, Justice Rehnquist conceded in his dissent that life-of-the-mother exemptions would be Constitutional.
@Andy, I gather you don’t live in Alabama, and I am constantly weirded-out by comments like those that I read recently claiming that the SCOTUS is setting the stage to make abortion illegal as national law. The pro-life position is not a majoritarian one, except in a handful of states, and even then I wonder about the backlash if the SCOTUS drops out completely. But I don’t expect it too; they will enable more local regulation that makes it more difficult to access abortions in some states. Maybe returning to the trajectory that was occurring at the time Roe was decided.
Kavanaugh is proving to be more a moderate in his rulings, siding with Roberts rather than with the conservative contingency. Consequently, his vote can’t be counted on to overturn Roe.
Furthermore, from further reading, it appears the Alabama abortion law was strategically structured to challenge Roe in the Supreme Court, especially in defining the personhood status of a fetus.
Just to show how extreme the GOP misbecoming on the issue, in Ohio we have this.
“John Becker, a state representative in Ohio, recently sponsored a bill that would also change how pregnant women with unsustainable pregnancies are treated. He suggested that ectopic pregnancies, which are not viable, should in part be handled by “removing the embryo from the fallopian tube and then reinserting it in the uterus so that’s defined as not an abortion.â€
Steve
On average each Ohio state representative represents about 50,000 people. There are a lot of loonies out there.