A Federal Ban Is Next
The American evangelical right has already made that clear
The circulation of a draft Supreme Court opinion striking down the right to abortion has sparked outrage and terror as the majority of the country grapples with a post-Roe future—but for the Republican Party, it’s another step closer to banning choice altogether.
Ruling in favor of Mississippi and allowing its 15-week abortion ban to stay in place, the draft explicitly strikes down Roe v Wade and a subsequent case, Planned Parenthood v Casey.
The draft opinion, written by George W. Bush-appointed Justice Samuel Alito, is not final. It’s still technically possible that the decision could go the other way. But given the murderer’s row of far-right justices on the majority opinion—Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—that seems unlikely.
Republicans are not likely to rest on their laurels. Far-right commentator Michael Brendan Dougherty laid out the plan in a tweet, saying that if Roe is overturned, “it merely [restores] the necessary pre-condition for an anti-abortion politics.”
That’s not an exaggeration. Earlier Monday, The Washington Post reported that elements of the GOP and their allies in the religious right movement intend to ban the procedure after six weeks nationally once they regain power.
From the Post:
While a number of states have recently approved laws to ban abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy — the limit established in the Mississippi legislation at the heart of the case pending before the high court — some activists and Republican lawmakers now say those laws are not ambitious enough for the next phase of the antiabortion movement. Instead, they now see the six-week limit — which they call “heartbeat” legislation — as the preferred strategy because it would prevent far more abortions.
Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) told the Post that the six-week ban isn’t up for debate.
“I’m not willing to compromise that,” Kelly told the paper. “I think it’s morally unacceptable.”
And Alito’s opinion leaves open the possibility for further regressive decisions that could strike down other rights, such as the right to gay marriage and the legalization of gay sex.
All in all a bleak evening in May.
Here’s the draft opinion.
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The US Susperm Court has now bowed to the Dicktates of the Repubican party and taken us down the road to a theocracy led by the autocracy. God, help us.