Dec 2, 2021

On SCOTUS

If you give government the power to prohibit abortion, then you give government the power to mandate abortion.

Don't dismiss that as a wild hypothetical.


And don't try to make the case that China is some kind of outlier. Governments have gone round-n-round on this for 40,000 years, and you don't have to go far to find authoritarian assholes who just want power. They look to control women as a way to fragment the population, which makes it harder for people to band together so they can stand up against the Daddy State.

This is, and always has been, a question of an individual's right to autonomy.


And, as always, it's about where we draw the line.

The Thomas Court (Roberts is "Chief Justice" in name only) is all but locked in on gutting Roe v Wade.

I imagine they'll try to sell it as something short of a full overturning - prob'ly because the wingnuts will bitch about how SCOTUS didn't go far enough no matter what happens - but it promises to be just like SCOTUS killing the Voting Rights Act simply by shit-canning the part that made the states play nice. Which of course triggered all of the shitty things states are doing now to squelch the vote.

So a coupla dozen states will probably spring into action and pass laws either restricting or outlawing abortion almost immediately if the Court guts Roe v Wade, while certain others say they're ready to go the other way.

DenPo: (pay wall)

Democratic state lawmakers want to ensure abortion access remains legal in Colorado even if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.

On the day the Supreme Court heard arguments over a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a group of state legislators signed a proclamation to uphold Coloradans’ rights to abortion. They plan to introduce a bill next year codifying abortion rights into state law.

“Coloradans have affirmed over and over again that politics has no place in private medical decisions that belong between a pregnant person, their family and their provider,” Rep. Meg Froelich, a Democrat from Englewood, said in a news release. “Four times we have rejected political attempts to ban abortion on the ballot. It’s time to stop playing defense and move Colorado beyond the bans.”

- snip -

While Colorado has no state laws restricting access to abortion, it also doesn’t have laws protecting that access, said Laura Chapin, spokesperson for Colorado abortion rights and advocacy group Cobalt.

Colorado was the first state to liberalize abortion in 1967. Previously, advocates resisted passing legislation to affirm the right to abortion in the state, worrying doing so could become an organizing tool for those on the right. But now they say Colorado must act.

“We’re looking at a proactive bill to protect abortion access here in Colorado because, clearly, the courts are not going to protect us anymore,” Chapin said in an interview.

With a Democratic-controlled state legislature and governor’s office, bills to restrict or ban abortion in Colorado — such as the “Protect Life at Human Conception” bill — have not been able to move forward.

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