The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in the case that could decide the fate of abortion rights in the United States. The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, centers on a 15-week abortion ban out of Mississippi. The state and a chorus of conservative groups have urged the justices to overturn precedent guaranteeing abortion as a constitutionally protected right.
Watch live:
While I’m glad Breyer is putting up a fight.
I AM STILL PISSED that he is not stepping down.
Oy.
I think it’s a safe bet that SCOTUS will side with Mississippi on this one. Why wouldn’t they? It’s what six of the Justices have wanted all along, isn’t it?
Based on the snippets I’m reading on Twitter, it feels like the conservatives are leaning towards siding with the State of MS and overturning Roe. However, the liberals on the SCOTUS are doing a great job of making clear to everyone that this case is about overturning Roe and not some stealth, back door approach where Roe somehow co-exists with a standard that erodes or chips away at it. No middle ground. Sotomayor is plainly stating that such a decision would be political and effectively lawless. The conservatives may take that as a challenge to write a decision that somehow makes an anti-Roe ruling consistent with Casey, but they’ll lose the political battle, and that matters most.
Breyer and Sotomayor are making it pretty clear that if the conservative majority does overturn Roe, the GOP will pay the max political price. If there’s one person that argument can persuade, it’s Kavanaugh. That said, I’m not too optimistic about Roe remaining as law.
My prediction:
6-3 to affirm the 15-week ban. That’s a no-brainer. Roberts writes for the majority, because he gets to assign the opinion to himself. Guaranteed that it will include legal fuckery that enables basically any and all restrictions, but it won’t outright overrule Roe, just the viability threshhold.
Thomas and Alito will concur with the majority on affirming the 15-week ban, but will write separately to performative display how much they hate hate hate abortion. Gorsuch might join them, but I think he’ll probably keep his powder dry for the next fight. Rapey McBeerface and Handmaid’s Tale both probably go along with the Chief.
Breyer assigns the dissenting opinion to Justice Kagan, who will shit all over the forced-childbirth majority.
Justice Sotomayor is amazing. She’s ripping this lawyer apart. I’m not sure it’s going to make a difference, but I must say, she’s a bad ass!