;)
June 25, 2022
Afternoon Update:
David Savage of the New York Times: President "Biden returns to Europe on Saturday night at a moment when everything about the war [in Ukraine] is [difficult]. While Russia's oil exports have fallen precipitously, its revenues have actually been on the rise, a function of soaring fuel prices. After concentrating its efforts in Ukraine's south and east, Russia is making incremental but significant gains, as the Ukrainians, surrounded, begin to give up key cities: first Mariupol, and now, in the east, Sievierodonetsk. So Mr. Biden must prepare his allies for a grinding conflict -- a return to the 'long, twilight struggle' that President John F. Kennedy talked about during the Cold War -- amid shocks in the food and energy markets, and inflation on a scale few imagined six months ago. Not surprisingly, a few cracks are already emerging, as popular discontent, and coming elections, begin to worry allied leaders."
Donald Judd of CNN: "President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law the first major federal gun safety legislation passed in decades, marking a significant bipartisan breakthrough on one of the most contentious policy issues in Washington.... In his remarks Saturday, the President announced he'd host members of Congress who supported the landmark gun safety legislation at a White House event on July 11, following his return from Europe, to celebrate the new law with the families of gun violence victims. The package represents the most significant new federal legislation to address gun violence since the expired 10-year assault weapons ban of 1994 -- though it fails to ban any weapons and falls far short of what Biden and his party had advocated for, and polls show most Americans want to see." A New York Times report is here. ~~~
Norway. Henrik Libell & Mike Ives of the New York Times: "A 10-day Pride festival in Norway was cut short on Saturday after an early-morning shooting left two people dead and at least 10 others seriously wounded outside a popular gay club in downtown Oslo. The police are investigating the attack as an act of terrorism. The shooting, on a warm summer night that saw streets filled with revelers, came hours before Oslo was set to host big crowds for its first Pride parade since 2019. The event's organizers canceled the parade and the rest of the festival, which was to run through Monday, at the suggestion of the police."
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Caroline Kitchener, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court's decision on Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade sets off a cascade of antiabortion legislation that will affect roughly half the country. Without the landmark precedent in place, access to abortion will change quickly. First, 13 states with 'trigger bans,' designed to take effect if Roe were struck down, will prohibit abortion within 30 days. Several other states with antiabortion laws blocked by the courts are expected to act, with lawmakers moving to activate their dormant legislation. A handful of states also have pre-Roe abortion bans that could be brought back to life, and others moved yesterday to introduce new legislation. In 20 states and the District of Columbia, abortion already is legal and access is likely to be protected."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to abortion after almost 50 years in a decision that will transform American life, reshape the nation's politics and lead to all but total bans on the procedure in about half of the states.... Bans in at least eight states swiftly took effect after they enacted laws meant to be enforced immediately after Roe fell. More states are expected to follow in the coming days, reflecting the main holding in the decision, that states are free to end the practice if they choose to do so.... Protests swelled across the country on Friday evening. Outside the Supreme Court, thousands of abortion rights supporters demonstrated alongside small groups of celebrating anti-abortion activists.... Throngs spilled into the streets in large cities like Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia, and smaller crowds gathered in places like Louisville, Ky., and Tallahassee, Fla.... The ruling will test the legitimacy of the court and vindicate a decades-long Republican project of installing conservative justices prepared to reject the precedent, which had been repeatedly reaffirmed by earlier courts. It will also be one of the signal legacies of ... Donald J. Trump, who vowed to name justices who would overrule Roe. All three of his appointees were in the majority in the ruling." The AP's report is here.
Iowa. Andy Campbell & Alanna Vagianos of the Huffington Post: "A truck driver careened into a group of demonstrators in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Friday as they crossed the street during an otherwise peaceful protest of the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The unidentified male driver of a Ford truck rammed into several protesters -- all of them women -- at the tail end of a procession, rolling over one woman's ankle and sending her to the hospital, witnesses said. 'He tried t murder them,' said a local journalist and witness to the attack, Lyz Lenz. 'These women see him coming and a bunch of people put their hands out to stop him. And he just keeps going.'"
Shawna Chen of Axios: "California, Washington and Oregon are launching a 'West Coast offense' to protect reproductive rights following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the states' Democratic governors announced Friday.... The commitment vows to set up protections against states that target medical professionals who provide abortions and patients who receive legal reproductive health care services in California, Washington and Oregon. It also pledges to 'protect against judicial and local law enforcement cooperation with out-of-state investigations, inquiries and arrests' related to abortions performed in the three states. The three states will '[r]efuse non-fugitive extradition of individuals for criminal prosecution' related to accessing legal reproductive health care."
Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "Calling the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade a 'tragic error,' President Biden on Friday tried to galvanize voters ahead of the midterm elections and called on Americans to 'make their voices heard.'" ~~~
Jacob Knutson of Axios: "Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Friday, in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, that states cannot ban mifepristone, a medication that is used to bring about an abortion, based on disagreement with the federal government on its safety and efficacy.... Already, almost half of U.S. states have banned or tightly restricted abortion pills -- two medicines named mifepristone and misoprostol -- and more could soon follow suit, Axios' Oriana Gonzalez, Ashley Gold and Jacque Schrag report.... Mifepristone and misoprostol have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.... It is far from settled law as to whether states can ban the pills, and the issue will likely have to be litigated in the courts, though there's really no clear precedent, according to the Washington Post."~~~
~~~ Dareh Gregorian & Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "Legal experts predicted there would be numerous court challenges following Friday's court ruling. Khiara M. Bridges, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said 'there's an open legal question about whether states could limit the use of mifepristone in light of the FDA's judgment that the medicine is safe and effective. It's not at all clear.' While the FDA can can declare the drug is safe, Bridges said, 'states can regulate the practice of medicine within their borders.'"
~~~ ** Garland's full statement is here, and it's well worth reading.
Kaly Soto of the New York Times: "... the U.S. Supreme Court ruling scrapping the constitutional right to abortion reverberated globally, drawing a wave of responses from world leaders, some of them heated -- 'horrific,' 'a huge setback' -- as denunciation outweighed praise. With the decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the United States joins a handful of countries, like Poland, Russia and Nicaragua, that have rolled back access to the procedure in the last few decades, while more of the world has gone in the other direction."
Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "Publicly, [Donald] Trump crowed about the Supreme Court rulings [overturning Roe & the New York gun law] Friday in a triumphant statement released through his super PAC, blasting his usual suspects, including Democrats and the news media.... He has complained privately that the overturning of Roe could hurt Republicans politically in independent and suburban districts, two advisers said, and has told allies they should emphasize that states can set their own laws. Trump has also told some of his advisers he thinks a better position would be to limit but not ban abortion, two of these people said...."
Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws, one result of today's decision is certain: the curtailment of women's rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens.... With sorrow -- for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection -- we dissent. -- Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor & Elena Kagan, joint dissent
Robert Barnes, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Friday overturned the fundamental right to abortion established nearly 50 years ago in Roe v. Wade, a stunning reversal that leaves states free to drastically reduce or even outlaw a procedure that abortion rights groups said is key to women's equality and independence.... The vote was 6 to 3 to uphold a restrictive Mississippi law. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., though, criticized his conservative colleagues for taking the additional step of overturn Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which had reaffirmed the right to abortion.... In a separate opinion, [Clarence] Thomas expressed his support for revisiting other Supreme Court rulings that he and other conservatives believe should be left to individual states. For example, he wrote that the court should move forward with revisiting the right to contraception and the right for same-sex couples to marry.... Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) celebrated the Supreme Court ruing as 'courageous and correct.' 'This is [a] historic victory for the Constitution and for the most vulnerable in our society,' McConnell said in a statement Friday." This is a liveblog. (Also linked yesterday.)
The decision, concurring opinions & dissent are here, via the Supremes' Website. (Also linked yesterday.)
Sam Knows Best. Michael Scherer of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Supreme Court's new majority boldly signaled with twin rulings this week that public opinion would not interfere with conservative plans to shift the nation's legal landscape. The court rejected Roe v. Wade, a 49-year-old legal precedent that guaranteed the right to an abortion, after a string of national polls showed a clear majority of Americans wanted the opposite result. A similar court majority invalidated a 108-year-old New York state law restricting who can carry concealed guns that is supported by nearly 8 in 10 New Yorkers, according to a recent poll by Siena College. Rather than ignore the dissonance, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. ... attacked the notion that the court should consider the public will. He quoted late chief justice William H. Rehnquist from a previous ruling: 'The Judicial Branch derives its legitimacy, not from following public opinion, but from deciding by its best lights.'... The high court during the George W. Bush, Barack Obama and early Donald Trump administrations generally hewed closely to shifting public views on key social issues like same-sex marriage, private sexual conduct, workplace protections for transgender people and popular support for laws and executive orders on immigration and health care."
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court's decision on Friday to end the constitutional right to abortion concluded one battle for now but immediately posed another far-reaching question: whether the judicial ground under rights in other personal matters, including contraception and same-sex marriage, is now also shaky.... Justice Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion ... explicitly said that precedents establishing those rights -- which relied on the same legal reasoning as the now-overturned Roe v. Wade -- should be reconsidered.... The three dissenting liberals on the court said..., 'No one ... should be confident that this majority is done with its work.'... Friday's opinion had the immediate effect of allowing laws banning or severely curbing access to abortion to snap into place in at least 20 states.... The heart of Justice Alito's majority opinion is that the 14th Amendment protects only unwritten rights that were already understood to exist in 1868, when it was adopted." ~~~
~~~ Marie: It doesn't matter what the confederates' supposed rationale is; they will do what they want, then go in search of an excuse. And Alito has provided an excuse to take away all hard-earned rights, especially gay rights, inasmuch as I very much doubt gay rights were "understood to exist in 1868." If you are not a straight, white, Christian man, you do not have inalienable rights and you cannot be trusted to make personal decisions.
Linda Greenhouse of the New York Times: "They did it because they could.... The arrogance and unapologetic nature of the opinion are breathtaking.... The practical consequences of the decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, are enormous and severe. Abortion, now one of the most common medical procedures, will be banned or sharply limited in about half the country.... What the court delivered on Friday is a requiem for the right to abortion. As Chief Justice John Roberts, who declined to join Justice Alito's opinion, may well suspect, it is also a requiem for the Supreme Court."
Jill Filipovic of the Guardian: "As of 24 June 2022, the US supreme court should officially be understood as an illegitimate institution -- a tool of minority rule over the majority, and as part of a far-right ideological and authoritarian takeover that must be snuffed out if we want American democracy to survive.... Of the nine justices sitting on the current court, five -- all of them in the majority opinion that overturned Roe -- were appointed by presidents who initially lost the popular vote; the three appointed by Donald Trump were confirmed by senators who represent a minority of Americans. A majority of this court, in other words, were not appointed by a process that is representative of the will of the American people. Two were appointed via starkly undemocratic means, put in place by bad actors willing to change the rules to suit their needs.... Can a country be properly understood as a democracy ... if it subjugates half of its population, putting them into a category of sub-person with fewer rights, freedoms and liberties? The global trend suggests that the answer to that is no.... An authoritarian, patriarchal, white supremacist minority [decided it] should rule" [by attacking the Congress]. The supreme court decision stems from that same rotted root: the idea that a patriarchal minority should have nearly unlimited authority over the majority."
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "Over the last three decades, I have witnessed a dismal saga of opportunism, fanaticism, mendacity, concupiscence, hypocrisy and cowardice. This is a story about men gaining power by trading away something that meant little to them compared with their own stature: the rights of women.... [When George H.W. Bush nominated him to the Supreme Court, Clarence] Thomas talked about being raised by his grandparents, sharecroppers from rural Georgia. But on the court he has been cruel, pushing opinions that would grind down the poor and underprivileged. While his wife ran around helping Trump with his coup, Thomas was the senior firebrand in a coup of extremists on the court. They yanked power away from John Roberts and are defying the majority will in this country in ways that are terrifying.... Clarence Thomas, of all people, has helped lead us to where we are, with unaccountable extremists dictating how we live." Dowd calls out Bush I, Joe Biden, Mitch McConnell & Donald Trump, too.
Marie: There's been some happy talk about how American women living in no-abortion states can simply travel out-of-state to get their abortions. That's true -- if the woman is financially-comfortable, has no job or a job that allows her an "abortion holiday," has the status to make her own decisions, and has an "uneventful" pregnancy she wishes to terminate. But that combination of circumstances is not true for many women: some are poor, some might get fired if they take time off from work, some are teenagers living at home, some have conditions that demand immediate attention.
How Maine Outsmarted the Supremes. Aaron Tang in a New York Times op-ed: "Anticipating this week's decision [striking down the state's law prohibiting religious schools from receiving taxpayer aid], Maine lawmakers enacted a crucial amendment to the state's anti-discrimination law last year in order to counteract the expected ruling. The revised law forbids discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, and it applies to every private school that chooses to accept public funds, without regard to religious affiliation.... By enacting its law, Maine was able to assure its taxpayers that they will not be complicit in discriminating against L.G.B.T.Q. students, because private schools that discriminate will be ineligible for public funds." Tang suggests ways to get around the ruling striking down New York's concealed-carry law.
Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "Congress gave final approval on Friday to a bipartisan compromise intended to stop dangerous people from accessing firearms, ending nearly three decades of congressional inaction over how to counter gun violence and toughen the nation's gun laws. The House approved the measure 234 to 193 one month to the day after a gunman stormed into an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and used a semiautomatic rifle to kill 19 children and two teachers, sparking outrage across the country and a flurry of negotiations on Capitol Hill. The measure now heads to President Biden, who is expected to sign it."
Stephanie Lai & Linda Qiu of the New York Times: "The House passed legislation on Friday to extend free meals and other food assistance for children, clearing it for President Biden's signature one week before a series of pandemic-era waivers was set to expire. The bipartisan bill, which passed the Senate on Thursday night by unanimous consent, was a compromise that will prevent children from going hungry creating a lifeline for families beleaguered by inflation and supply chain woes. It was a rare instance of Congress extending a pandemic assistance program, coming as the Biden administration' requests for additional coronavirus aid have stalled amid Republican opposition." MB: So McConnell decided that the day his favorite Supremes forced women to have children would not be a good day to support starving the kids. Good thinking, Mitch.
Jon Swaine & Dalton Bennett of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department and the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol have asked Danish filmmakers for video footage recorded as they followed Trump confidant Roger Stone in the weeks after the 2020 election, according to emails and interviews. During the past three months, the investigators have repeatedly sought access to a 170-hour cache of footage shot for director Christoffer Guldbrandsen's forthcoming documentary on Stone.... That footage was cited in a Washington Post report in March that described Stone's activities [on January 6, 2021], including inside the Willard hotel where he and many other Trump allies were staying. The footage showed that Stone communicated on an encrypted messaging app with leaders of far-right groups, and that he claimed at the time to be in contact with ... Donald Trump. Guldbrandsen has declined the requests, citing the need to maintain journalistic independence and to complete his film."
Clark Won't Answer Committee's Questions, But Tucker's? Sure. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: Thursday evening, the same day the House select committee demonstrated how mid-level DoJ attorney Jeffrey Clark helped advance the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Tucker Carlson invited Clark to appear on his Fox "News" show. "On Wednesday morning, federal law enforcement officials searched Clark's home, confiscating a number of electronic devices. On Thursday evening, Tucker Carlson asked him to opine on the raid.... '... increasingly, Tucker, I don't recognize the country anymore with these kinds of Stasi-like things happening,' [Clark said.]... For Fox News's most popular host, Clark was also useful as a way to push forward his narrative that the government is out to get the political right."
Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A federal judge [Amit Mehta of the D.C. District] on Friday ordered defense attorneys for alleged members of the Oath Keepers charged with seditious conspiracy to disclose whether their legal fees are being paid by anyone other than their clients after prosecutors warned of potential conflicts of interest if former Donald Trump attorney Sidney Powell is helping raise money for some of the legal defense as reported."
Matt Richtel, et al., of the New York Times: "A federal appeals court on Friday granted a temporary reprieve to Juul Labs that will allow it to keep its e-cigarettes on the market, pending further court review of a decision just a day earlier by the Food and Drug Administration to ban sales of the company's products. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a temporary stay that had been sought by Juul. The brief order by the appeals court cautioned that the stay ... 'should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits.' The stay involves the F.D.A.'s order on Thursday, when the agency said Juul had to stop selling its products because it had provided conflicting and insufficient data that prevented the F.D.A. from assessing the potential health risks of its products."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live update of developments Saturday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's updates for Saturday are here.
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Reader Comments (17)
Now that the people she provided cover for and voted in have killed Roe, just wondering if Susan Collins is Concerned™.
And while we’re at it, after yesterday’s ruling, NPR legal affairs reporter, Nina Totenberg, tried very hard (and not all that convincingly) to say that right wing extremist/theocrats on the court weren’t actually, ya know, lying during their nomination process about their position on Roe. “Settled law” and “Oh, suuuure I respect precedent” (wink, wink) were standard lies, oops, I mean smirking obfuscations, but given who they were (Kavanaugh, brazen liar and attempted rapist), their background, (Phony Barrett, stated categorically and in writing(!) that she hated Roe), who nominated them (the Orange Menace, well known serial abuser and alleged rapist), and who orchestrated their ascension (Mitch McConnell, most evil schemer in American congressional history), no reasonable person could vote these monsters in and expect a different outcome. The real liar here was Collins.
That being said, it appears clear that we need a veritable tsunami of Democratic voters to turn out in all upcoming elections if there’s to be any hope of a congressional solution. Unfortunately, the extremist/theocrats on the court will be undeterred by election outcomes. Their foot is pedal to the metal to drag us all back to their 19th century paradise where rights are only for them and those like them.
From Savage, above: “The heart of Justice Alito’s majority opinion is that the 14th Amendment protects only unwritten rights that were already understood to exist in 1868, when it was adopted.” This seems to be an argument that supports my “no modern firearms” post yesterday. But as Marie points out above, the argument only counts when it is convenient.
And Clarence Thomas wants to take us back to a time when he
couldn't marry his wife?
Someone should remind him of that fact.
@Forrest Morris: Maybe he's working on that as a way to get out of his marriage without having to get a divorce. (Clarence is a Roman Catholic, so having the Court invalidate his marriage would be convenient.) I know if I were married to Ginni Thomas, I'd want to end the marriage, and I'd go to a lot of trouble to do it. (True, I wouldn't ruin millions & millions of other lives to solve my personal problem. But I'm not Clarence Thomas.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/roe-kavanaugh-collins-notes.html
My comment to the Times last night:
"Why would anyone expect a Federalist Society ideologue to tell the truth during his or her confirmation?
To ideologues, the ends always justify the means."
So the best Alito can do to explain his lunacy is hide behind Rehnquist's words (most likely cherry-picked as he does with the Constitution)?
'The Judicial Branch derives its legitimacy, not from following public opinion, but from deciding by its best lights.'...
But what if its "best lights" are flickering candles, whale oil lanterns, or just plain dark?
Maureen Dowd takes Clarence Thomas apart limb to limb.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/25/opinion/clarence-thomas-abortion-supreme-court.html
Abortion has been a wedge issue for Republicans ever since they shoved their other bug-a boo, Communism, for lack of evidence. We go back in time to Buckley, to Goldwater, and other conservatives and the history of all this is complicated. But here's little Marco Rubio 's words laced with that militant stance when he was a presidential candidate:
"All this damage that he's done to America is deliberate." He's talking about Obama which sounds almost like an accusation of treason. The GOP warned that as President, Hillary Clinton, despite her long record as a moderate-to slightly left Democrat, would try to lead us down the road to socialist perdition. And then we had Steve Bannon's cry of destroying America and putting it back together. And of course religion is the linch pin here––-way to get all those Catholics into the GOP. Someone said Trump was just the yeast that the conservatives used to make their bread rise. That may be, but we unfortunately were too lax in checking that dough and it has now spilled all over this country. And look what they have wrought!!!!!!
@P.D.: You wrote "linch pin". Did you actually mean "lynch pin?"
Sounds more appropriate for these times.
I am known around here as a pessimist. That seems to have been written in stone yesterday. I am reasonably sure that both Alito and Thomas are bitter and vengeful people. While I don't know anything about Alito other than his usual sour expression, I listened to Anita Hill's testimony in my office at the Girl Scouts, while working for the organization noted for its support of girls and women. And yes, I hated Joe Biden then. I believe he has evolved so I no longer hate him, but my hatred for the revenge-filled Thomas burns white hot. He is a predator, an elderly workplace "Romeo" with a patently ugly face, who has waited a long time to stick it to white people, specifically women of any hue. I don't doubt that he and Ginny have gotten away with it all, but my hopes are pinned on karma. Which is wholly unsatisfying. I went to a rally last night, and spent the evening with friends, and not one person was celebrating. As for the court, goddamn it to hell. As for the congress, Susan Collins and Mitch in particular, I disagree with Marie: Mitch doesn't think, he plots. And Susan is as dumb as we have thought she was. Dems must step up their reluctant game, but I have no doubt that we are royally screwed, through at least my grandchildren.
Forest: Ha! Yes, I actually meant "lynch" but hey––you're right, Linch may be the right word here.
I'd recently thought this improbable, but now wonder: How long before all constitutional amendments following the tenth are declared subject to review?
Or could this policy also apply to the original document as there seems to be no settled law?
@Nisky Guy: As a guest on MSNBC put it this morning (slight paraphrase), "In 24 hours, the Supreme Court decided that the states cannot regulate guns but they can regulate women's rights." So, as we've said, first they make the decision they want to, then they go in search of an argument to try to justify it.
I just had an idea. Please let me know what you think. It might not be nuts. I expect every state has at least one U.S. military base. That's federal property, not exactly the way a U.S. embassy in another country is U.S. property, but, um, sort of. So what if the feds set up abortion clinics on military bases throughout the country, and Biden & Garland said it was legal for women to get abortions there? I'll admit that if our next president* in a Republithug, he would shut them down, but maybe in the meantime, Democrats could sometime somehow pass some legislation blessing the military abortion clinics.
@Marie Burns: Just this morning Elie Mystal was suggesting the same thing. Leasing federal facilities to abortion providers and allowing women to pick up medication at the post office.
Marie: The Hyde Amendment would make that very hard to implement. As it is, uniformed military women (either members or dependents) cannot use military medical facilities for abortions or associated care. Many military "named hospitals" (e.g., Brooke at Ft Sam, Walter Reed, etc.) and overseas hospitals have fully equipped and staffed maternity facilities -- but the Hyde Amendment and associated references slipped into numerous authorizing and appropriating legislation forbid using them for abortions other than emergency treatment for the life of the mother.
You could do what you are suggesting, but it would require repeal of lots of laws and regs. Not likely.
DOD is going to have a BIG problem with the Roe repeal, since many of their more junior personnel are in southern states (where most training takes place) hence states which will forbid abortion. There will be lots of junior officers and enlisted women who won't be able to get legal abortions without taking leave and traveling, all on their own dime. Look for the black market in abortions to be densest within a day's drive of major military installations.
Marie,
Funny you mention the possibility of abortions on military bases. This morning I listened to an “On the Media” podcast which looked back at various historical aspects of abortion from right around the time of Roe to yesterday’s patriarchal/theocratic evisceration of women’s rights.
One case in particular caught my ear. Back in 1970, an Air Force nurse serving in Vietnam became pregnant. At the time, the military had strict rules against this. You get pregnant? We kick you out. No discharge, of course for men who became dads. This nurse, Capt. Susan Struck, decided to fight this unequal treatment. She got herself a lawyer. A lawyer by the name of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The case went to the Supreme Court. It’s a pretty fascinating case, and worth reading up on for the details. In the course of the story something was mentioned that I had never been aware of. Abortion, illegal almost everywhere in the country, was available on military bases.
From an article in the Guardian:
“In 1970, Hawaii was the only state where a civilian woman could legally obtain an abortion for any reason. The landmark supreme court decision Roe v Wade, which provided a constitutional right to choose, had yet to be decided. But women could obtain abortions on military bases.”
So there seems to be historical precedence for your idea. Now granted, I’m pretty sure the procedure was only available to military personnel. Despite the Hyde Amendment, which as Patrick points out, is now set in stone, there is precedence here. Not that precedence matters to the current Party of Traitors and their storm troopers on the court. Just another way we’ve gone back a lot further than most people realize. And that toboggan ride is just getting started.
Jeanne,
Pessimism is certainly at a pretty high level these days. You ain’t alone.
Regarding Susan (Concerned™) Collins, I’m not sure I’d characterize her as dumb, certainly not Ron Johnson dumb. She’s one of the oldest serving senators so she knows how things work.
I think she likes to try to have it both ways. She’s a confederate member of the Party of Traitors, but she wants to appear to be sympathetic to women’s rights. She probably thought she could slide one by everyone by saying “Gee…they promised me…”
That way, maybe she thought she wouldn’t get painted with the same brush as the misogynistic thugs.
Another plan gone to shit. But as I’ve said before, for someone who’s been around for a while, she MUST have known what would happen if she voted for assholes like Kavanaugh. Likely she didn’t want to have to deal with attacks from the christianist mob by voting against these people. Either that or she knew exactly what was going to happen and either agreed with it or just didn’t care.
So maybe not dumb, but definitely too slick for her own good.
And ours.