When the U.S. Supreme Court decided Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on June 22, 2022, it was a matter of time before abortion would have another hearing in the high court. On Wednesday this week justices heard oral arguments on whether the State of Idaho’s abortion ban is constitutional in Moyle vs. United States. Alice Miranda Ollstein and Josh Gerstein reported on Politico:
The Supreme Court on Wednesday will consider — for the first time since it overturned Roe v. Wade —whether an individual state’s abortion ban is constitutional.
The justices will hear arguments on whether federal law requires emergency room physicians in Idaho to perform abortions to stabilize pregnant patients experiencing a medical crisis despite the state’s near-total prohibition on the procedure, which only allows doctors to end a pregnancy when the mother’s life is in danger.
It’s the second major abortion case of the term, following last month’s arguments over the FDA’s regulation of the widely used abortion pill mifepristone, and the latest example of how overturning Roe and returning abortion rights to the states did not keep the courts out of the fray, as some justices had hoped. Decisions in both cases are expected in June.
The Idaho case homes in on the clash between red states’ desire to ban nearly all abortions and President Joe Biden administration’s efforts to preserve some access to the procedure, and the arguments come amid a roiling national debate on the issue. And it comes as doctors around the country plead for clarity on the parameters of the medical emergency exemptions to state bans, warning that vague definitions of “life-threatening” and the prospect of criminal charges are creating a chilling effect that deters them from providing needed care in patients’ most vulnerable moments.
5 questions about the Supreme Court’s next major abortion case by Alice Miranda Ollstein and Josh Gerstein, April 24, 2024.
Read the entire article here. I recommend following Alice Miranda Ollstein’s work at Politico.
The irony in 2024 is that Roe Vs. Wade was the compromise on what was then, and continues to be, the controversial issue of abortion. It is unlikely times have changed in that regard since Jan. 22, 1973, when Roe was decided (7-2). Despite talk about “letting the states decide” on abortion, given diversity of opinion among the states, combined with Republican efforts to have government control women’s bodies and health care, SCOTUS will inevitably have to re-decide Roe or something like it. When that will be is anyone’s guess, yet I submit, that day is coming.
Based on the boiling-over outrage I heard from three female justices during oral arguments on Wednesday, Idaho seems unlikely to prevail in this case. I mean, if one is arguing a case before the Supreme Court in support of your state’s extreme abortion ban, you might need Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett on your side. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern explained on Slate:
Justice Amy Coney Barrett famously provided the crucial fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022. So if you are arguing in favor of an abortion ban, you probably don’t want to alienate Barrett—by, say, condescendingly dismissing her concerns when she points out that your legal theory doesn’t make any sense. Yet that is what Joshua Turner did on Wednesday while defending Idaho’s draconian abortion restrictions, and much to Barrett’s evident irritation. Turner—who represented the Idaho solicitor general’s office in the second major abortion case to come before the high court after it promised us in its Dobbs opinion that the court was out of the abortion business in 2022—might just have lost his case by repeatedly mansplaining his self-contradictory position to Barrett and the other three women justices. In his toneless, dispassionate telling, his entirely incomprehensible position was just too complex for them to understand. And so he just kept repeating it, over and over. These justices, including Barrett, sounded increasingly fed up with his chin-stroking dissembling on an issue that’s literally life-or-death for pregnant women in red states.
The Lawyer Defending Idaho’s Abortion Ban Irritated the One Justice He Needed on His Side by Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern, Slate, April 24, 2024.
Read the rest of the article here. You can’t go wrong reading Dahlia Lithwick. How the case is decided is anyone’s guess after oral arguments.
Democratic Congressional Candidate Christina Bohannan held a round table discussion about abortion on March 26 in Iowa City. 10 people were in attendance to share their personal experiences and thoughts on the state of abortion rights in Iowa, according to the Daily Iowan. Citing a Des Moines Register poll, “61 percent of adults in Iowa believe abortion should be legal in all or most situations, and 35 percent believe abortions should be illegal in most or all situations.” A lot is at stake in the post-Dobbs era. It will take election of Democrats to turn the Republican tide that favors government intrusion into a woman’s health care.
Here is a link to the Iowa Democratic Party to get involved today.
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