Abortion Forever

I apologize for being late to post this. TAC was offline for a while this morning. The Supreme Court today, in a 5-4 decision, overturned Louisiana’s restrictive abortion law. Chief Justice John Roberts, the new Anthony Kennedy, provided the swing vote:

The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a restrictive Louisiana law that would have left the state with only one abortion clinic.

It was the first chance for a court reinforced by President Trump’s two conservative appointees to reconsider its abortion rights jurisprudence. But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the court’s liberals in striking down the law, saying it was required by the court’s decision overturning a Texas law in 2016.

“The legal doctrine of stare decisis requires us, absent special circumstances, to treat like cases alike,” Roberts wrote in concurring with the decision. “The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons. Therefore Louisiana’s law cannot stand under our precedents.”

The question was whether Louisiana’s 2014 law requiring doctors at abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals unduly burdens women’s access to abortion. Practitioners have said it has proven impossible for most of the doctors to acquire the privileges, leaving only one eligible to perform the procedure.

It is almost identical to the Texas law struck down by the Supreme Court in 2016, which said the requirement did not have a medical benefit. Now-retired justice Anthony M. Kennedy joined the court’s four liberals to form a majority in what was its most important endorsement of abortion rights in 25 years.

Ryan Anderson puts his finger on the moral insanity of this moment:

Unreal. Justice Roberts just voted with the four liberals on an abortion case because of stare decisis… The precedent he’s upholding is from a case just four years ago, that he dissented on. If he thought the Court got it wrong four years ago, today was his chance to correct it

— Ryan T. Anderson (@RyanTAnd) June 29, 2020

Two years ago, Roberts signed the dissent in the 2016 Texas case — a dissent that said the majority decision “exemplifies the court’s troubling tendency ‘to bend the rules when any effort to limit abortion, or even to speak in opposition to abortion, is at issue.’” Today, only four years later, Justice Roberts has Grown In Office, and has voted to uphold the abortion status quo. Good Catholic Justice Roberts.

Can anyone understand SCOTUS abortion jurisprudence? Can it ever be applied logically? I think it can, if you understand this principle: Pro-lifers must lose.

I first heard about the decision when a pro-life Catholic lawyer e-mailed it to me, saying, “We vote for Republicans to avoid decisions like this.”

Another Catholic friend messaged: “Welp, looks like I’m done with the GOP.”

More:

The Sad, Sad Song of the SoCon:

1980: No more Harry Blackmuns!

1990: No more John Paul Stevenses!

2000: No more David Souters!

2010: No more Anthony Kennedys!

2020: No more John Robertses!

2030: No more … https://t.co/Gh8FewC8IF

— Darel E. Paul (@darelmass) June 29, 2020

Another reaction:

Yeah, Roberts is full of crap, and is voting with the liberals because he knows how the Senate races are going and wants to forestall court packing. Let’s just admit it. https://t.co/tWiaSiAADL

— Peter Spiliakos (@petespiliakos) June 29, 2020

Still another:

The time is now past to relate to the American regime as citizens.

Christians must now relate to it as subjects, as we were in Nero’s Rome. https://t.co/YMGf4Qb2jyhttps://t.co/5yvIKoB160 https://t.co/yfAXvsmah3 pic.twitter.com/4ZKBSBpg2z

— Irenist