South Dakota: abortion showdown advances
South Dakota on Monday moved one official step closer to provoking a constitutional showdown over abortion rights, as Gov. Mike Rounds signed into law a bill that would outlaw all abortions except those necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman. The full text of the governor’s signing statement can be found here. The text of the bill as enrolled can be found here.
The aim of the sponsors of the legislation is to push the limits on abortion far enough that they would test the underlying constitutional basis of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision establishing a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. Gov. Rounds, in his statement, said: “The reversal of a Supreme Court opinion is possible,” citing Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and its reversal of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). “HB 1215 will give the United States Supreme Court a similar opportunity to reconsider an earlier opinion.”
Calling it “a direct challenge” to Roe, Rounds said “I expect this law will be taken to court and prevented from going into effect this July. That challenge will likely take years to be settled and it may ultimately be decided by the United States Supreme Court.”
Planned Parenthood Federation of America has said it would file a court challenge to the new law, but there was no immediate word Monday evening on when such a case might be filed.
Three questions:
1) If everybody agreed, how fast could this get to the SCOTUS?
2) If there was a general agreement to push this to the court ASAP, then could both sides “cooperate” to push it. All the arguments are already known, and one wonders if any court will look at any of the material put in front of them, so lets get this in front of the court in the next few weeks and get it over with?
3)
Given that there may be a third conservative apointment to the court, would both sides want to get a decision soon, or what are the reasons that the sides would want to delay it.
Comment by mike liveright — March 6, 2006 @ 10:21 pm
Doesn’t this case get challenged in the federal courts and doesn’t it get struck down if not at the District Court level then at the 8th Circuit, with a cert. denial?
Query: given (a) widespread support of abortion rights in many parts of the country, (b) the inaccessability of abortions in many areas of the country where the practice is frowned upon and (c) the ability to travel, even if Roe v. Wade were overturned, what kind of effect would that overturning have on the actual numbers of abortions per year in the country?
Comment by federalist — March 7, 2006 @ 12:09 am
This is bill is a means of scaring Planned Parenthood of South Dakota into wasting its resources and a brilliant signal sent to fundamentalist voters. This is how you defund the Left and boost voter turnout in 2006.
Comment by Commentator — March 7, 2006 @ 12:41 am
I’m afraid I just don’t get the logic of what’s going on in S.D. Even some conservatives have questioned the timing of passing this bill before Justice Stevens retires.
At present, there are at least five votes on the Court for the Casey holding, and there can be no doubt that this bill offends Casey. For all we know, there could be more than five votes, since Roberts and Alito haven’t yet declared their positions since joining the Court. Lest we forget, Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter were all once thought to be anti-Roe. It just goes to show the difficulty of predicting in advance how a Justice will vote. But even in the best case for the conservatives, Casey still commands a 5-4 majority.
Given that background, conservatives have to be hoping that Stevens retires before the S.D. case reaches the Court, and that he is replaced by a Justice hostile to Casey. If Roberts and Alito are also hostile to it, then Casey (and therefore Roe) would finally be overruled by a 5-4 margin.
But that’s like trying to complete an inside straight in poker. Nobody knows for sure that Stevens will leave the Court while Bush is still president, and nobody knows for sure that Roberts and Alito would both vote to overrule Casey. Unless everything goes perfectly, all the conservatives will have for their effort in S.D. is yet another abortion statute declared unconstitutional. What’s the point?
Comment by Marc Shepherd — March 7, 2006 @ 8:35 am