Senior writer @Slate. Courts and the law. Do you have a link to the ruling?
All this is a direct consequence of the anti-abortion movement signing on to the Republican Party's broader agenda. The same politicians who want to ban abortion also want to obliterate the social safety net. Being anti-abortion all but guarantees you are anti-welfare, too.
The dissenters scorn Alito's declaration that today's decision does not place other precedents "under threat." "Either the majority does not really believe in its own reasoning. Or if it does, all rights that have no history stretching back to the mid19th century are insecure."
Kavanaugh preemptively declares that states can't prohibit their residents from traveling elsewhere for an abortion due to the "constitutional right to interstate travel"—which, like abortion, is not mentioned explicitly in the text of the Constitution.
Pausing here to recall Susan Collins' speech announcing that Brett Kavanaugh would NEVER overrule Roe v. Wade because he believes that precedent “not something to be trimmed, narrowed, discarded, or overlooked.”
I think the Supreme Court issued Bruen (guns) on Thursday and Dobbs (abortion) on Friday so that neither decision would overshadow the other, giving both Thomas and Alito their separate moments in the sun. These opinions are the crowning achievements of their lives so far.
Douthat's prediction is delusional. There is a very high correlation between states that now ban abortion and states with the highest maternal and infant mortality rates. These states had plenty of time to pass pro-parent, pro-child policies. They refused.
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On the morning of Jan. 6, Ginni Thomas—wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—endorsed the protest demanding that Congress overturn the election, then sent her “LOVE” to the demonstrators, who violently overtook the Capitol several hours later. She has not posted since.
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 prosectors to charge patients with murder.
Alito's draft opinion explicitly criticizes Lawrence v. Texas (legalizing sodomy) and Obergefell v. Hodges (legalizing same-sex marriage). He says that, like abortion, these decisions protect phony rights that are not "deeply rooted in history."
Ginni Thomas urged Mark Meadows to overturn the 2020 election by any means necessary—while her husband was ruling on cases attempting to overturn the election. A truly extraordinary level of corruption.
The 5th Circuit just dismantled the SEC's power to enforce securities law. This decision is beyond radical. It is nihilistic.
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