The Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment) has never been serious about defending Roe v. Wade. This has been the case since Jimmy Carter blithely responded to Medicaid restrictions on abortion with a pithy, "There are many things in life that are not fair."
For 40+ years, ever since Ronald Reagan chose to ally himself with people who wanted to criminalize abortion for political advantage, the Democrats have been using Roe, and the Supreme Court, to raise funds, and passing a law to make it legal across the land would have stopped that particular campaign finance.
Also, making the right to choose a law would made Blue Dog and New Dems find something else to talk about, so nothing has been done.
Well now (in)Justice Alito's draft opinion completely overturning Roe v. Wade has been leaked to Politico, which in addition to being the first time a draft Supreme Court opinion has been leaked to the press in my memory, sets the stage for overturning not only Roe v. Wade, but also, Griswold v. Connecticut (right to birth control), Obergefell v. Hodges (legalizing gay marriage), Lawrence v. Texas (decriminalizing homosexuality), and Loving v. Virginia (legalizing inter-racial marriage).
The opinion also includes a bald faced lie, "And to ensure that our decision is not misunderstood or mischaracterized, we emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion."
At the core of the decision is the idea that since there were laws against abortion before 1973, there is no right to an abortion. This applies to all of the above decisions, and will almost certainly later be applied to a whole raft of civil rights precedents, up to, and possibly including, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, and certainly rolling back decisions protecting the right to vote, which has been Chief Justice Roberts' passion since his days a s a junior lawyer.
Whoever leaked this should get a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Full copy of opinion after the break:
2 comments :
Alito probably leaked it as a trial balloon, to see if mobs with pitchforks and torches would come for him.
Sociopaths are often shocked at sane people's lack of savagery.
It wasn't Alito. If it were, he would have told Roberts not to go to the police and so confirm that the draft is authentic.
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