Death of Roe

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About

The "Death of Roe" refers to the now-expected overturn of the Supreme Court's landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision [W] which made it illegal for states to outlaw abortion. This decision has been affirmed by SCOTUS countless times since, and yet the six "conservatives" now on the GOP-packed bench see no problem in overturning what has been well-established precedent for five decades.

Pages

• /Matt Gaetz on "overeducated women"

Links

the leak

• 2022-05-17 Clarence Thomas Is Simply Radiating Hypocrisy Following Supreme Court Leak « unlike some of his colleagues, along with members of Congress and a seemingly endless parade of political pundits, who have all been worried about how this leak might undermine America's opinion of the court, Thomas seems to be saying that it’s his trust in us that's at risk.»
• 2022-05-11 Alito’s draft opinion overturning Roe is still the only one circulated inside Supreme Court ...«none of the conservative justices who initially sided with Alito have to date switched their votes. No dissenting draft opinions have circulated from any justice, including the three liberals.»
• 2022-05-08 Supreme Court in disarray: New leaks reveal Roberts' own preferred Roe reversal
• 2022-05-04 DKos: The content matters far more, but evidence says a rwnj gave us the draft - speculation about motives for the leak: hypothesizes that it was a right-winger who didn't want to leave any room for the right-wing justices to back down (this doesn't make sense to me, though, since SCOTUS justices are carefully isolated from the need for donations etc.)
• 2022-05-02
  • Politico: Supreme Court has voted to overturn abortion rights, draft opinion shows
    • BI: Leaked draft opinion appears to show the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade

analysis

• 2022-05-08 HuffPo op-ed: The Threat To Our Communities Comes From Anti-Abortion Laws, Not Abortion (opinion, by an MD who provides abortions in NY) «[Roe v. Wade] made abortion legal up to "viability," a nebulous concept that varies but is commonly defined as 24 weeks. In 2021, Texas enacted a new anti-abortion law (called “SB8”) that made abortion illegal past about six weeks – a time when most people don’t even realize they’re pregnant. Although this law is still being fought in federal courts, it has remained in effect for over eight months»
• 2022-05-07 NBC: Black women in the South have been bracing for Roe’s fall for decades
• 2022-05-06
  • ProPub: Draft Overturning Roe v. Wade Quotes Infamous Witch Trial Judge With Long-Discredited Ideas on Rape (via) «Justice Alito’s leaked opinion cites Sir Matthew Hale, a 17th-century jurist who conceived the notion that husbands can’t be prosecuted for raping their wives, who sentenced women to death as "witches," and whose misogyny stood out even in his time.»
  • Beau5C: Let's talk about why the democrats didn't codify.... (video, 8m15s, Beau of the 5th Column): this is the opening shot
• 2022-05-04 DKos: Alito cites racist eugenics theory to support overturn of Roe v. Wade «Alito pivots to the white savior role, actually attempting to justify that the removal of reproductive rights somehow aligns with a fight against racism—even citing the same misrepresented statistics used by pro-choice activists advocating for eugenics.» This looks like the abortion is black genocide argument again.
• 2022-05-03
  • ProPub: "This Was Not a Surprise": How the Pro-Choice Movement Lost the Battle for Roe (h/t)
  • House Judiciary GOP tweet: «Still trying to find the word “abortion” in the Constitution.»
  • 2022-05-05 DKos: This Republican tweet counted on people not having read the Constitution. Whoops: many things they consider important are also not in the Constitution -- and the Constitution explicitly states that the rights it does list (among which is "«The right of the people to be secure in their persons»") should not be construed as the only rights under protection.
• 2022-05-02 WaPo: The next frontier for the antiabortion movement: A nationwide ban$ (archive.org) The next frontier for the antiabortion movement: A nationwide ban

predictions

about what will happen after Roe is dead:

• 2022-05-06 CoDr: Experts Warn GOP War on Abortion Will Turn Red and Blue States Into 'Mutually Hostile Legal Territories' «Abortion could be outlawed in up to 26 states as soon as next month, with no exceptions for rape or incest in 11 states, according to the Guttmacher Institute.» Meanwhile, blue states are preparing to be abortion sanctuaries.
• 2022-05-03 Vice: Totalitarian Patriarchy Isn’t a Fantasy. It Looks Like This. (h/t via) «These stories imagine easily understood turning points at which it becomes clear that nothing will ever be the same. This is a failure of imagination.»
• https://girlcock.club/@maeve/108240660916709765 "penumbra of rights"
• https://twitter.com/BrynnTannehill/status/1521481078376181760
• https://twitter.com/amaditalks/status/1521632749219680257 "deeply rooted in history"
• https://twitter.com/NoLieWithBTC/status/1521319660125306880 "deeply rooted in history"
  • https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1521296185977417732
• https://twitter.com/elliotcwilliams/status/1521315457613107201 - specific decisions likely to be overturned

fallout

• 2022-05-07 Sen. Mitch McConnell said a national abortion ban would be 'possible' if Roe v. Wade is overturned
• 2022-05-05 Abbott threatens to challenge SCOTUS 1982 decision ensuring free public education for all kids: SCOTUS having overturned one major right, rights-opponents see this as an opportunity to overturn more of them. It looks like Abbott mainly wants to deny it to immigrant kids, for now -- but if he gets that, poor kids will be next.
• 2022-05-04 Can Republicans Stop Patients From Leaving the State for an Abortion? Some Are Willing to Try. Texans flee to Oklahoma: Oklahoma passes a copycat law. Missouri had already drafted a similar law back in March, anticipating this decision. «...the Court has no understanding that a post-Roe world is going to be one where jurisdictions fight each other. [...] if in a state like Missouri, a zealous prosecutor goes after an Illinois provider who has been providing abortions on their citizens, the courts are going to have to figure out: Can a state do that if the provider is completely following Illinois law?”» This is fine with the GOP; they feed on social chaos.
• Arizona:
  • 2022-05-07 Arizona GOP Senate candidate wants to allow states to ban contraception use «Blake Masters, a Tucson-based venture capitalist, boasts on his website that he will only vote to confirm federal judges "who understand that Roe and Griswold and Casey were wrongly decided, and that there is no constitutional right to abortion."»
• Louisiana: HB 813: Enacts the Abolition of Abortion in Louisiana Act of 2022
  • discussion: 05-04 Mark Joseph Stern «Here is Louisiana’s new fetal personhood bill—which House Republicans just voted out of committee 7–2—making abortion a crime of homicide “from the moment of fertilization” and allowing prosecutors to charge patients with murder.»
  • 2022-05-05 CoDr: Louisiana GOP Advances Bill to Make Abortion a Homicide by Patient and Provider
  • 2022-05-04 'We can't wait on the Supreme Court': In Louisiana, abortion could become a crime of murder
  • 2022-05-05 Louisiana Republicans advance bill that would charge abortion as homicide$
• Mississippi:
  • 2022-05-08 Pressed On Abortion Ban For Incest Victims, Mississippi Gov. Says There Aren't Many
• Nebraska:
  • 2022-05-15 Nebraska GOP governor says he will call a special session to pass total abortion ban if Roe is overturned Governor Pete Ricketts: «"Nebraska is a pro-life state. I believe life begins at conception, and those are babies too," Ricketts told CNN's Dana Bash» When asked about rape: «"If Roe v. Wade, which is a horrible constitutional decision, gets overturned by the Supreme Court, which we're hopeful of, here in Nebraska, we're going to take further steps to protect those preborn babies." "Including in the case of rape or incest?" Bash asked. To which the governor replied: "They're still babies, too. Yes."»
• Texas:
  • 2022-05-10 Suspect in 'death of something I didn’t know existed': Texas virtually criminalizes miscarriages too «"Intentionally or not, it felt like I’d become a suspect in the death of something I didn’t know existed," Parrish said on Twitter. "Eventually, it stopped. They were satisfied that I hadn't known I was pregnant and induced an illegal abortion in Texas. I left, though not without the fear that because I'd gone for medical help, I'd now be reported, per Texas law."» Parrish went on to note that such prosecutions have already happened.

apologia & hypocrisy

• 2022-05-08 Republicans Double Down On Reversing Abortion Rights, Offer Hearts To Pregnant Women
• 2022-05-07 Critics Erupt After Clarence Thomas Tells Americans To Deal With It On Roe v. Wade

discussion

• 2022-05-02 Roe Vs. Wade Overturned
• 2022-05-04 Guidelines: Handling discussions referencing the Supreme Court's draft decision on abortion

counteractive measures

• 2022-05-14
  • Thousands gather for nationwide 'Bans Off Our Bodies' rallies for abortion rights
  • Missouri. Louisiana. Arizona. Patients are already traveling hundreds of miles to have abortions in Illinois
• 2022-05-12 More Than a Dozen Companies Set To Reimburse Abortion Travel Expenses
• 2022-05-03
  • How U.S. companies are supporting workers on abortion
  • Governor Murphy urges Congress to protect abortion access in advance of Supreme Court ruling «federal lawmakers must act to protect and codify abortion rights as New Jersey legislators recently did, Gov. Phil Murphy said Tuesday.»
• Amazon (despite their apparent support for anti-abortion groups):
  • 2022-05-03 Amazon Will Offer Employees Travel Reimbursements for Non-Life-Threatening Medical Procedures, Including Abortion (via h/t) «In response to a slew of GOP-backed efforts to curb access to abortion, Amazon announced it will pay up to $4,000 in travel expenses annually for non-life-threatening medical treatments, including abortion»
  • 2022-05-02 BBC: Amazon will pay US staff travel expenses for abortions and other treatments
• The US Navy offered something similar.

miscellaneous

• https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/5/3/2095554/-Susan-Collins-whines-about-completely-predictable-SCOTUS-abortion-flip
• https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/5/3/2095654/-Roberts-is-suddenly-concerned-with-betraying-confidences-and-breach-of-trust
• https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/5/3/2095673/-Statement-from-Obama-on-the-draft-Supreme-Court-decision-to-overturn-Roe-v-Wade