Originally published at: The crazy way Congress could pass a federal law banning abortion | Boing Boing
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They’ll take the first option. There are few things that GOP policy and legal wonks like more than hypocritically twisting interstate commerce laws this way or that as suits their needs and then laughing at the howls of outrage from liberals and progressives.
I’d be willing to bet that Manchin and Sinema would vote with them if they took that approach.
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How and if a GOP-controlled Congress would pass such a law, and whether it would be upheld by SCOTUS, are two different questions.
Congress could pass a bad law expecting it would be struck down eventually, but the right-wing members would score points with their base in the meantime.
It’s also possible that a court challenge would come along and SCOTUS would simply decline to hear it if they liked how the lower courts had ruled. That would be kicking the can down the road, but it’s a long road and you can kick cans for a long time.
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At this point it seems optimistic to assume that an interstate commerce clause based strategy would be built on treating medical instruments and consumables, rather than women, as the regulated property items.
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I would hope that the first time a “personhood” law goes into effect, a fertility clinic goes to court with a cryo flask full of fertilized eggs scheduled for disposal, asking for the court to assign surrogate wombs so as to prevent a mass murder.
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Unamend the Mann Act back to include “or for any other immoral purpose”.
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Is this before or after we liberals eliminate the filibuster? Because a fair number of people here seem interested in doing that.
What stymies us now might well protect us later …
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That’s working on the assumption that the living doormats that are the Dem Congressional leadership would be so uncivil as to use it.
It’s an antiquated device meant to undermine majority rule that one side is reluctant to use. Get rid of it.
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Do we really imagine the Republicans, who have shown themselves willing and eager to invent rules on the fly, would be stopped by the filibuster instead of either cancelling it themselves or making up a way around it?
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Abortion is illegal because that’s the Christian way and the court isn’t going to stop us.
Also, if they went with the second option, you could make a case that a pregnant person should be able to immediately claim their fetus as a dependent for tax purposes, and also take out a life insurance policy on it.
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