The fate of reproductive rights in the U.S. will be decided by five men this Thursday

[Soph0571]

The Fifth Circuit is convinced that the hard-right, Federalist-society-vetted ideological makeup of the new Supreme Court majority will now support the same restrictions on abortion that the Court had previously repudiated. And they are probably right. After all the sordid details about rape, perjury and drunkenness in Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings had dissipated into last year’s news cycle, with so-called “pro choice” Republican Senators like Susan Collins obediently falling into line, there really was only one reason Trump nominated him: to overrule Roe v Wade.

Yes, the court is very unlikely to hand down an opinion this week which uses the words “Roe v. Wade is overruled.” But these abortion providers filed this application because a federal appeals court openly defied the Supreme Court’s most recent abortion decision. When the court refuses to enforce its own decision, that will send a clear signal to lower court judges throughout the country that they are free to uphold restrictions on abortion.
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But the Supreme Court now has its chance to kill Roe v Wade, without leaving its messy fingerprints on the body.

[T]he consequences of a 5–4 decision permitting [The Louisiana law] to take effect would extend far beyond one state. It would indicate that the Supreme Court’s new majority has retreated from Whole Woman’s Health, signaling that states are free to ignore it and pass stringent laws targeting abortion clinics. Once Whole Woman’s Health is functionally overturned, Roe itself will be next on the chopping block. After all, Whole Woman’s Health really just re-affirmed the fundamental principle that states may not devise pretextual excuses to deny women control over their reproductive rights. Once that rule is scrapped, states will be unleashed to regulate abortion out of existence within their borders.

[link:https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/2/2/1831516/-The-future-of-women-s-reproductive-rights-in-the-U-S-will-be-decided-by-five-men-this-Thursday|

A culmination of the right wing assault on women's reproductive justice to be decided by a bunch of male right wing wankers? Sounds about right in 2019....*sigh*

[no_hypocrisy]

1. In 1990 I predicted this would be the outcome of Webster.

"Reasonable restrictions" my ass!

[CrispyQ]

2. Abortion and the 13th Amendment - this is the argument that needs to be made.

Abortion and the 13th Amendment

https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1031&context=facultyworkingpapers

2010
Forced Labor, Revisited: The Thirteenth Amendment and Abortion
Andrew Koppelman
Northwestern University School of Law
[e-mail]

I. The basic argument
The Thirteenth Amendment reads as follows:

1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

2. Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

My claim is that the amendment is violated by laws that prohibit abortion. When women are compelled to carry and bear children, they are subjected to "involuntary servitude" in violation of the amendment. Abortion prohibitions violate the Amendment's guarantee of personal liberty, because forced pregnancy and childbirth, by compelling the woman to serve the fetus, creates "that control by which the personal service of one man [sic] is disposed of or coerced for another's benefit which is the essence of involuntary servitude."6

Such laws violate the amendment's guarantee of equality, because forcing women to be mothers makes them into a servant caste, a group which, by virtue of a status of birth, is held subject to a special duty to serve others and not themselves.

~the entire paper is at the link

Parents can't be compelled to donate their organs to their child, even to save the child's life, so why does a fetus have such claim on a woman's body?

[musette_sf]

3. I agree with the 13th Amendment analysis

13th (no gestational slavery), and the 9th via the 14th (right to privacy), covers it.

[smirkymonkey]

4. +1000

[procon]

6. An excellent observation, and one that never

even occurred to me. I feel enlightened!

How is it that argument is not in the mainstay in the legal battles to end the patriarchal War on Women?

[CrispyQ]

7. I felt the same way when I first read it a few years ago!

I don't know why the pro-choice movement hasn't run with this. ???

Also, my favorite pro-choice slogan ever is: The most important decision a woman can make isn't yours.

[procon]

5. The War on Women continues unabated.nt