Just barely
One bullet dodged in the war on abortion rights.
Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberal justices on the Supreme Court on Monday to block a controversial Louisiana abortion law that critics said would have closed nearly every clinic in the state.
The 5-4 ruling is a win for supporters of abortion rights who argued that the law was not medically necessary and amounted to a veiled attempt to restrict abortion. The law barred doctors from performing the procedure unless they had admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
Not really veiled, is it – everyone knows it’s about killing abortion rights.
Huh. Amazing that Kavanaugh voted to overrule a four-year old precedent. Susan Collins assured me that he had great respect for precedent and for abortion rights!
I was wondering if Roberts would fill the void left by Kennedy as the person who would just edge out that five to maintain a thin surface of abortion rights. It looks like he might.
iknklast,
I doubt it. I think this was just Roberts saying “come on, guys, I’m not a TOTAL hack.” Whole Women’s Health was decided just four years ago, and as soon as there was a change in the Court’s composition, the 5th Circuit comes up with some nonsense to uphold the Louisiana law in almost open defiance of WWH.
As Chief, he cares about the strength of the Court as an institution, and having that blatant a piece of political work succeed would be pretty damaging.
The underlying message, though, is: people, just come up with some bullshit that I can at least PRETEND is different from recent cases, and I will totally keep voting to chip away at Roe until there’s nothing left.
Well, to be honest, Kennedy was willing to chip away at Roe v Wade, permitting a lot of limitations while being unwilling to actually overturn it; in effect overturning it for many women who were denied access. I can see Roberts in that role; we’ll keep Roe on the books, because previous decisions and precedent, but we will allow many, if not most, limitations. Effectively cancelling access to abortion for large chunks of the population who cannot travel to other states. If I hadn’t been able to travel out of state for mine (to Texas, of all places! Slightly more liberal laws than Oklahoma, just enough to help me), I would not have been able to have my abortion. My life would be very different now. I was working full time, and so was the father. We had friends in Texas who could put us up overnight. And there was not yet a 24-hour waiting period, so I only had to take one day off work. And my insurance paid for it.
For a lot of women, those days are gone. I suspect for me, those days would be gone. The laws in Texas have tightened, and the number of clinics has dwindled. Though I did go to Dallas, which probably does still have clinics that perform the procedure.
Yeah, I wasn’t paying enough attention to the “thin surface” part of your comment. My guess is they may be pretty similar in that regards. Roberts probably would prefer to avoid the “Roe v. Wade Overturned!” headlines, and just let abortion rights get chipped away to nothing.
As usual, Dahlia Lithwick has a good article about what Roberts is probably up to.
I’m hardly the first to make this observation, but it’s amazing how many of the same people who think it’s ok to tell a woman she must go through with a pregnancy also find it an OUTRAGEOUS infringement of their own personal bodily autonomy to have to wear a mask in public.