Thursday, January 12, 2006

Are there worse outcomes than the loss of Roe?

femsignAmpersand at Alas a Blog has a post looking at the possibilities for an Alito Supreme Court, under the presumption that Roe would stand but that freedom of choice would continue to be dismantled in the piecemeal fashion that has left so many without access to clinics or options.
Without overturning Roe, they will attempt to pass new laws that will make it in practice impossible for many or most women to get abortions. And most of these laws will be "stealth" abortion bans, laws designed to seem moderate or reasonable on the surface (and therefore protecting Republican congressfolks from voter backlash) while actually banning a wide range of abortion procedures.
It's worth reading the whole (depressing) thing, not least for the legal change that he predicts ("applying the Salerno standard"), which would mean that constitutional challenges would offer no protection from even obviously bad laws, at least not in the short time-frame relevant to a pregnant woman. Oy.

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