I see this as another sign that the country is moving back to the left. Thirty five years of conservative principles ruling have left us with Trump and Ryan, crumbling infrastructure and guns everywhere. But on front after front, things are changing. Politics and public opinion are cyclical.
The anti-abortion radicals have done their own side much harm. Society is starting to see them as a Westboro bunch of crazies, imposing a limited biblical view on others who don’t share it. Bill Clinton offered them a great way of main-streaming–safe, legal, and rare–and they never had the critical thinking skills to take it up.
So what happens in those other cases if they’re under litigation. Does someone move for a decision, citing the supreme court ruling, or do the states and potentially the judges try to craft explanations of why they’re Not As Bad As Texas and the whole thing goes on for years longer?
This decision is a real punch in the gut of the anti-abortion movement. I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t see some act of evangelical terrorism in response.
The same mind set controls the anti-abortion movement as controls the NRA. True believers view the world in the light of black and white extremism.
That’s because they want 0 abortions, not rare ones. You can’t argue with extremists.
Unless they are the ones that need the abortion.
Zealots don’t do “Nuance”.
This will shut down some of the TRAP crap, but not all of it. I think the biggest win here is that the SC said judges have to include information on the medical necessity for any of these laws. States will have to justify a law based on real world effects, and very few of the TRAP laws have anything that can back them up (and basically none in the case of pill based abortions). The SC can’t make laws though, so they couldn’t do the useful thing and put real limits on what is or is not allowed. It will be messy for a while, but this might be the case that pushes back all the BS abortion restriction laws…states that don’t have the restrictions can show what then differences are and if there are any effects on women’s health (there aren’t), so the states arguing for restrictions suddenly have a big hill to climb.
The bad thing is that once that becomes clear we’ll see a lot more violence against clinics, and more angry protestors outside trying to stop people from visiting. They will damage their cause even more, but true believers don’t care…I just hope no one is killed in the process.
Next up is to declare those doctor killers to be domestic terrorists and lock them up when they talk about closing women’s health clinics and threatening doctors.
Finally, a sensible ruling by SCOTUS on the abortion issue. More, please.
It’s a shame Scalia had to die. I would have been happy with him resigning. But either way, his absence is a net plus for the country.
One of the issues that concerns the wider medical community is that TRAP laws can be used against any clinic that provides outpatient services. Your dermatologist could be shut down for not having the right width hallways, or for not having hospital privileges, even though the practice does not require them. Several amicus briefs were filed around that in this lawsuit.
As in the case of Down’s babies.
Depending on the country, how they track pre-natal diagnosis, and other factors, between 65%-90% of downs pregnancies are terminated. A far higher percentage that the 40%-50% of people who claim to be against abortion.
I had a statistics class in college, and the professor pointed out that polling indicated Redbook, National Geographic, Better Homes and Gardens, were the hottest selling periodicals in the country.
Actual sales indicated it was Playboy and Penthouse. (obviously I was in college pre-internet)
The lesson was, watch what people do, not what they say,
The drop in the population of downs babies since the advent of amniocentisis would indicate the pro-life crowd is much smaller than polling is indicating.
This is very constitutiony and I approve.
YAY!
Another white male buy-bull thumping law bites the dust!
Actually, they don’t care much (if at all) about abortions. If they wanted to reduce or eliminate abortions, they would be pushing HARD for free contraception, especially IUDs.
We all know what they really want is to repress women’s sexuality.
This serves as a good reminder that local and state races matter. The worst thing you can do is go to vote but only vote for President - that is what gets extremist right-wingers into local and state office. Vote the entire ballot.
They want the sluts to pay for their sins.
Even though we’re all sluts to one degree or another.