SCOTUS Hypocrisy

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) pulled no punches while delivering a scathing speech on Thursday after Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion justifying the intention to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked. Gillibrand commanded all the attention deserving of her well-placed anger, addressing not just Alito, but all men.

“I would like to speak to America’s men for one minute. Imagine you do not have authority over your own body for 10 months. Imagine if that decision-making would be taken away even if you would die in childbirth, even if you couldn’t decide who you’re having children with, even if you couldn’t decide when you were having that child,” the New York Senator vehemently declared.

Gillibrand’s remarks echoed the sentiment of women across the nation at that moment, watching in horror as 50 years of precedent and reproductive health care choice is on the precipice of being stripped away.

The righteously indignant Gillibrand called out the GOP-appointed Justices who sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee during their own confirmation hearings and vowed to respect the constitutional law, including Justices Kavanaugh, Barrett, Gorsuch, and Alito himself. At Alito’s own hearing in 2006, the right-wing activist justice had this to say about the court’s reliance on precedents:  READ MORE...

Life After Roe V Wade

Here in my state of Texas, there is appropriate pro-life satisfaction as we hear of a 60% reduction in abortions since last year's passage of the heartbeat law, which curtails the procedure once fetal cardiac activity is detected.

This was precisely the plan. With the window for terminating pregnancies narrowed to roughly six weeks, the measure has the effect of limiting abortion availability while stopping short of an outright ban that would run counter to the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court precedent.

The probable extinction of Roe later this Supreme Court term has energized some states to expand protections for the unborn. But as we wait for the Court to hand down a decisive ruling, those states should not kid themselves. Two things are sure to happen in any state that constrains abortion—fewer abortions within that state, and more women gassing up the car and heading to clinics in a neighboring state.

The monthly abortion total in Texas dropped from about 5,400 last August to about 2,200 last September. Does anyone believe that 3,200 women simply decided to choose life? Nothing would please me more, but evidence points to another outcome: Abortion providers in various nearby states are seeing an influx of Texas visitors.

Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri all report a surge in Texas abortion clients, as women unable to exercise that option at home simply pursue it in more lenient environments. A Guttmacher Institute study found some Texas women seeking abortion clinics in 12 states that do not even border Texas. Many women in the Lone Star State may well have chosen adoption, or to raise their babies after all, but no one should underestimate the energies at least some women will expend to pursue a goal of abortion.  READ MORE...