Thursday, June 30, 2022
Political Mayhem Thursday: Post-Dobbs mayhem
It's been nearly a week now since the Supreme Court announced its decision in Dobbs, which overturned the right to abortion created in Roe and Casey.
So what comes next?
Basically, a huge mess. Here are some of the issues left open:
-- States will create a patchwork of rules. Some states (as allowed by the Court's opinion explicitly) will ban abortion altogether. Others will place stricter limits. Many will keep things as they are; for example, in Minnesota the state constitution has been found by the state Supreme Court to confer an independent right to abortion in the state.
-- That means that people in states where it is banned will take actions to get an abortion via another state, either by traveling to that state or by receiving abortion drugs from another state or country.
-- People evading the abortion bans will agitate those who sought the bans, and they will try to outlaw those things that make this possible: information, travel, financial help, and drugs in the mail. Let's examine each in turn.
-- State bans on information on legal abortions in other states will be difficult to regulate, for two reasons. The first is that the First Amendment may protect that speech. The second is, well, the internet-- good luck regulating that in a way that prevents people from getting information about anything!
-- It is highly unlikely that a state will be able to criminalize travel to another state to get an abortion. In his concurrence, Justice Kavanaugh made clear that he thinks this is protected by the constitutional right to travel between the states.
-- Funding someone's travel to another state could be easier to regulate, though. It will present a closer question, and it is an important one given the number of poor people who live in our country (and especially in the states where bans are being imposed).
-- Outlawing the possession of abortion drugs will probably stand up in court. That means that there will now be a thriving black market in yet another drug. Interestingly, there is precedent for banning drugs that aren't narcotics: steroids.
It's all going to be a mess. Most of the people prosecuted will be poor or working class, and some prosecutors will be ruthless. In some states, women who get an abortion will be tried for murder, and face the stiff, often mandatory, sentences that go with that crime. Illegal abortions will be part of it-- but may not be the worst part.
