On Monday, when the [Supreme] court heard oral arguments in two challenges to the law, Texas found itself in trouble. Five — and perhaps as many as six — justices seemed to have grave concerns about Texas’ strategy to nullify the right to abortion. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, for example, said the law was designed to prevent abortion providers in Texas from presenting a “full constitutional defense.”
But if you’re starting to think the justices’ concerns with S.B. 8 might mean they are committed to protecting abortion rights, don’t. The objections we heard on Monday, especially from the justices whose votes will be crucial in any case where abortion rights are at stake, had much less to do with abortion than with the Court’s desire to protect its own power.
Politico
Congress seems to be the only branch that isn't all about protecting its own powers. And perhaps the one that should do it most of all.
[C]onservative groups pleaded with the court that states could use the same strategy to gut other rights, including ones about which the court’s conservatives care a great deal. The justices seem intent on expanding the right to bear arms and the free exercise of religion. States could use S.B. 8-style laws to frustrate those ambitions. If the court held that abortion providers could not sue Texas, that would be a way of surrendering some of the court’s own authority. And as much as this court may be ready to reverse Roe, allowing Texas to make this kind of power grab is another thing entirely.
[...]
In fact, abortion rights barely appeared in the justices’ questions in the two cases, one brought by abortion providers, a second brought by the Justice Department. “There’s a loophole that’s been exploited here or used here,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said. “It could be free speech rights. It could be free-exercise-of-religion rights. It could be Second Amendment rights.”
[...]
That means that Roe v. Wade, which could be on the chopping block as soon as next year, is nowhere close to safe, no matter what happened on Monday — and in fact that Monday could be just the first step of many on the way to overturning Roe.
[...]
[T]he court’s conservative supermajority still seems to be gunning to curtail abortion rights. The justices have a perfect opportunity to take a shot at Roe this term in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center, a Mississippi case involving a ban on abortion at 15 weeks.
[...]
Roe protects a right to choose abortion until viability. Mississippi bans abortion before viability. To side with the state, the court has to say that Roe was wrong about viability — or that there is no right to choose abortion.
[...]
It will then take time to get a decision holding that S.B. 8 is unconstitutional; an order blocking it will be appealed to the conservative Fifth Circuit, which will likely side with the state and force abortion providers to appeal to the Supreme Court again. All of this will take time. In the meantime, pregnant women in Texas will have to travel out of state for abortions or other forms of reproductive health care.
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
No comments:
Post a Comment