WASHINGTON – On Monday, I was working from home, remotely listening to the US Supreme Court hearing. oral arguments upon Texas extreme abortion law which essentially bans any abortion after six weeks, before most women know they are pregnant, and offers a reward to any private citizen for enforcing the ban. Judge Elana Kagan’s voice, dripping with mockery, filled the room. “The goal of this law, its purpose and effect, is to find the crack in the armor of ex parte Young … (who) established a basic principle of how our government is supposed to function and how people can seek revision of unconstitutional state laws, ”Kagan said.
“And the fact that after all these years, some geniuses came up with a way to evade the orders of that decision, as well as the order that the broader – the even The broader principle that states should not override federal constitutional rights and say, ‘oh, we’ve never seen this before, so we can’t do anything about it’? Um, I guess I don’t understand the argument. “
Across the room, my 10-year-old daughter, who was flight testing a rubber band-propelled polystyrene rocket and tasting Halloween candy, laughed out loud, appreciating the judge’s argumentative style. “Some geniusesShe repeated. My daughter had a distinct feeling that the judge was not impressed with the logic.
The abortion ban in Texas law is clearly unconstitutional, an issue the legislature tried to circumvent by having its provisions enforced not by the state but by private citizens, who can sue anyone who provides or helps provide an abortion. The Supreme Court has been asked preventively to decide whether this solution in any way protects the law from review; In addition to arguing that yes, Texas attorneys maintain that it cannot be preemptively challenged, that a hearing must wait until someone is charged by law.
Now my daughter is not an expert in US constitutional law or Supreme Court proceedings. Neither does his dad. But listening, you really don’t need to know much to predict which way most of the judges are leaning in this case.
Not just Kagan, one of the three court liberals. So did Chief Justice John Roberts, a Bush-appointed conservative, who was condescendingly exasperated by the Texas state attorney defending the law. And Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, two Trump-appointed conservatives put on the bench in part because of their opposition to abortion. in good faith, who bluntly suggested that the law was a clumsy attempt to bypass the constitution that would jeopardize other rights.
“It could be the right to free speech, it could be the free exercise of religious rights, it could be the second amendment right, if this position is accepted here,” Kavanaugh said. The Texas attorney acknowledged that that could be the case, although he suggested that Congress could act to prevent such an outcome. Kavanaugh speculated that in cases like protecting gun purchases under the Second Amendment, congressional legislation could be “pretty tough.”
To which Kagan intervened primarily for the purpose of having a bill of rights in the constitution: “Isn’t that the point of a right that you don’t have to ask Congress?”
When the Texas attorney began sarcastically caricaturing a point raised by the Chief Justice and echoed by other justices as a “extremis hypothetical ”equivalent to the court hearing that takes place on the moon, Judge Kagan interrupted him to applaud that the law in question is itself pretty damned extremis. “The real the provisions of this law have prevented all women in Texas from exercising a constitutional right as stated by this court, ”said Kagan. “That is not hypothetical. This is real “.
Like I said, it doesn’t take a lot of experience to interpret the tone. Plus experienced observers from Court that I and my daughter seemed to agree that the law seemed likely to be repealed. That might be expected to be cause for optimism among pro-abortion activists and abortion providers in Texas, and women there who want access to safe and legal abortion in their state.
Especially since this is a 6-3 conservative majority court that was largely designed by former President Donald Trump and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell to nullify abortion rights. The controversial appointments of Kavanaugh and Barrett were specifically heralded as a sign of the imminent end of Roe v. Wade. Now those two and Roberts appear from his line of questioning ready to join the court liberals in reversing Texas’ final race around Roe.
However, there is a fairly strong fear that legal abortion is in greater danger than ever. Because in just one month, on December 1, the court is ready to hear a case that presents a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade. The final stretch of Texas could prove irrelevant if the obstacle for which it is designed is knocked down.
The next case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s is referring to a Mississippi law that goes directly to the question of whether judicial precedent protecting abortion rights to the point of fetal viability will remain in effect. Many hope that the majority on the court will seize that opportunity to annul Roe v. Wade.
If they do, any decision about Texas rewards law will be irrelevant – abortion will automatically become illegal in Texas because the state has already passed an abortion ban that would become law if Roe v. Wade. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 21 states have laws in the books that they would ban abortion immediately if Roe was taken down. Conversely, 15 states and the District of Columbia have laws on the books that explicitly protect access to abortion.
Much attention has been paid to Texas law that attempted to circumvent the reach of the Supreme Court to ban abortion. While it appears that even court conservatives may reject such an attempt, they may soon remove the need for such circumvention as well. They could allow states, for the first time since 1973, to ban abortion entirely.
Reference-www.thestar.com