The North Dakota legislature approved a bill today that would ban abortions after the fetal heartbeat can be detected. That means there could be no abortions after the first six weeks of a pregnancy. It remains to be seen if the governor of the state will sign the measure.
The statute is silly. It flies in the face of the law set forth by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. In that decision, the Court ruled that during the first trimester of pregnancy, a woman had an absolute right to an abortion. That means that during the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, the states cannot limit the right to abortion. During the next 13 weeks, the states were told by Roe that they could not just ban abortion but that they could impose regulations upon when and how it could be performed. The rationale used by the Court was that until the fetus became viable, i.e., the baby could survive if removed from the mother's womb, it did not have any rights and the mother's interest in controlling her own body was paramount.
So let's be clear. The North Dakota statute will be struck down as unconstitutional unless the Supreme Court decides to overturn Roe v. Wade. That is not a result that anyone watching the Court ought to expect. Roe may have been a silly or stupid decision when it was made. I see no reason to argue about that. But after 40 years, does anyone really expect that the present Supreme Court is going to overturn Roe? This court did not even have the guts to strike down Obamacare's individual mandate which was clearly unconstitutional. The justices are surely not going to take on the abortion issue again.
The statute is silly. It flies in the face of the law set forth by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. In that decision, the Court ruled that during the first trimester of pregnancy, a woman had an absolute right to an abortion. That means that during the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, the states cannot limit the right to abortion. During the next 13 weeks, the states were told by Roe that they could not just ban abortion but that they could impose regulations upon when and how it could be performed. The rationale used by the Court was that until the fetus became viable, i.e., the baby could survive if removed from the mother's womb, it did not have any rights and the mother's interest in controlling her own body was paramount.
So let's be clear. The North Dakota statute will be struck down as unconstitutional unless the Supreme Court decides to overturn Roe v. Wade. That is not a result that anyone watching the Court ought to expect. Roe may have been a silly or stupid decision when it was made. I see no reason to argue about that. But after 40 years, does anyone really expect that the present Supreme Court is going to overturn Roe? This court did not even have the guts to strike down Obamacare's individual mandate which was clearly unconstitutional. The justices are surely not going to take on the abortion issue again.
No comments:
Post a Comment