Dobbs' Dilemma: Why Kavanaugh's Ideal of "Scrupulous Neutrality" in Dobbs is a Pipe Dream

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2022/03/31/dobbs-dilemma/

Most legal commentators believe the battle over abortion is about to shift decisively from the Supreme Court to state legislatures. The idea is that Roe v. Wade’s demise is a foregone conclusion, and the court’s funeral oration for Roe in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health will be the end of the road for the court’s involvement in abortion rights. Recent legislative developments are spotlighting a different prospect: that conservative religious pro-life state lawmakers won’t so easily let the court leave the field. Extreme pro-life legislation that threatens pregnant women’s lives and health, the sexual choices of all Americans, and the boundaries between church and state may force a continuing role on the Court. Dobbs will crucially preview the court’s attitudes toward those threats.

Not satisfied with Roe’s elimination, some faithful conservative legislators are now advancing anti-abortion laws that—like other anti-abortion measures already on the books—endanger pregnant women’s lives and health. One eye-popping recent example from Missouri, described by a Planned Parenthood affiliate there, involves bills introduced in the Missouri House and Senate whose terms “endanger patients by potentially criminalizing health care providers for treating ectopic pregnancies.”

Ectopic pregnancies—1% to 2% of all pregnancies—involve a fertilized egg that implants outside the uterus, commonly in the fallopian tube. If the pregnancy grows, it can rupture the fallopian tube, leading to potentially life-threatening internal bleeding.

That’s why a measure like the proposed Missouri bills—now happily altered, though still capable of reemerging elsewhere—would, if enacted, stop ectopic pregnancy abortions at the cost of health consequences and even death sentences for pregnant women. And it would force these costs without saving fetal life. An ectopic pregnancy cannot survive outside of the uterus.

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[in2herbs]

1. Perhaps it time to push the question "What will Rs do to rile up their base when Roe is

overturned and no longer a federal issue?" How likely is it an R will be elected to any state or federal position in a state that prohibits abortions?

When (and if) the USSC interferes with Roe it's time to make the Rs in these states pay their fair share of taxes instead of taking more $$ than they give the feds.