President Biden Might Be Right
Are State Court Judges The Answer To U.S. Abortion Care Debacle
When the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court invalidated Roe v. Wade, which was predicted, expected, and the opinion leaked months before it happened, President Joe Biden offered encouragement to vote progressive politicians into office.
Unlike a lot of matters, such as labor efforts to gain power from management or heavy-handed brutal policing in Atlanta, Biden might be right about the abortion care debacle set off by a hard-right SCOTUS.
The judicial system in the U.S. is troubled and fraught with racist rules and procedures. The system is often an oppressor of Black people. Moreover, for abortion rights concerns, the judicial system is filled with social conservatives and right-wing judges and justices. And that is where lawsuits challenging bans on abortion care will find their doom.
The simple fact of the matter is courts have long been the enemy of progress and one would think that Washington, D.C. legal wizards could figure this out.
But to bring no litigation means no avenues for development and communications efforts for many D.C. “nonprofit” advocacy groups. For example the tiny, very white and litigious, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, representing 13 Christians and Jews, has lodged a lawsuit in Missouri attempting to convince white, right-wing Missouri judges that banning abortion care violates the First Amendment. That lawsuit is beyond frivolous, it was lodged with foul intent — to raise money and clout for the small organization.
The Center for Reproductive Rights, an old Washington, D.C. pro-abortion legal outfit, just filed a massive but limited lawsuit in the Texas court system arguing the state’s constitution, about as musty as the U.S. Constitution, provides vast protections of human rights, and depriving women of abortion care is a violation of those protected human rights.
The CRR’s lawsuit represents five Texas women and two physicians, and it is a serious legal challenge unlike AU’s clout-chasing lawsuit. All women were denied abortion care and “suffered severe complications with their pregnancies.” Moreover, as The Guardian reports, none of the women’s “fetuses had a chance of survival.”
The women’s lawyer Molly Duane said, “We want the state of Texas to acknowledge the women … should have received timely abortion care,” and that the litigation is intended to establish that what happened to the women was a violation of their basic human rights according to the Texas constitution.
The lawsuit, as The Guardian notes, is not seeking to overturn Texas’ various bans on abortion care, but if the litigation prevails it would ensure those bans do not interfere with women who need the care to save their lives.
Because the massive lawsuit avoids outright invalidation of the state’s abortion care ban and is brought by expert attorneys, it has a better chance of surprising the court critic.
Nevertheless, this is Texas, and its court system is not progressive. This is a state that loves the death penalty and hates abortion care. Will a Texas judge side with a pro-abortion health care group from Washington, D.C.? The odds do not look good.
That’s why Biden, rarely onto anything good, might be right. Courts are not the answer. Progressive and left-wing politicians elected to seats of power who can then remake court systems are more likely the answer here.
Until then, U.S. courts are tools of the U.S. right-wing agenda — D.C. nonprofits know this but remain thirsty for cash and clout.
