Conservatives, including conservative Supreme Court justices, complain that death penalty foes are waging “guerrilla war” against capital punishment by working with drug companies to block states’ access to execution drugs, but conservative abortion foes have waged a guerrilla war against abortion for years by shutting down abortion clinics with a variety of tactics ranging from burdensome laws to protesters harassing clinic patrons to arson and assassination of abortion doctors. Obviously, hypocrisy has no boundaries.
In 1970, the Supreme Court ruled that abortion is a constitutional right. Foes, acting on their personal religious and moral beliefs, want to abolish legal abortion on the grounds an unborn fetus is a human being deserving of society’s protection. For defenders of abortion rights, the fight is about controlling their own destiny instead of being shackled to the responsibilities of supporting and caring for unplanned children — and, in some cases, not being forced to give birth to the unwanted children of rape and incest. These positions are fundamentally irreconcilable, thus the issue is being arbitrated on the battlefields of political warfare, with the Supreme Court acting as head referee.
Since then, the Court has allowed some chipping away of the abortion right established by Roe v. Wade, but has always stopped short of an outright reversal that decision, although in recent years the Court has often seemed only one vote, and therefore one presidential appointment, away from the majority of justices needed to reverse Row v. Wade. There is no higher stake in contemporary American politics than getting that vote onto, or keeping it off, the Court.
Meanwhile, many Republican-controlled legislatures, including the one in Texas, have tried to impose de facto abolition of abortion within their borders by piling onerous requirements and restrictions on abortion clinics that make it impossible for them to stay in business. A favorite tactic along these lines is to require them to meet hospital standards for operating rooms, facilities, and staffing.
Such restrictions were included in the Texas law the Supreme Court blocked today. A federal district judge had enjoined the law, but a federal appeals court removed the injunction. Today the Supreme Court order, by a 5-4 vote, reinstated it pending a full review of the case. That means the restrictions won’t take effect for now, but a final resolution of the issue is still in the future.
The assault by Texas Republicans on Texans’ abortion rights has been effective. They’ve shut down most of the state’s abortion clinics, and the remaining 10 clinics are concentrated in 4 major cities. No rural area, nor any part of the state adjoining the border with Mexico, has an abortion clinic. If you want an abortion in Texas you have to go to Houston, Austin, San Antonio, or Dallas-Fort Worth. Or, if you’re a Republican politician with a knocked-up mistress, across the border into Mexico.
Photo: Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN), a physician, had adulterous sex with a patient whom he subsequently pressured to get an abortion. He’s shown here with one of his kids he didn’t kill.