really a right? if the texas legislature has its way, texans may have a right to an abortion, at least for now, but they won t be able to obtain one. and that is really no right at all. the nonlawyer in me comes back to this same question. was this simply written to trick, to bamboozle the supreme court, to let them overturn roe v. wade, which is what cecile richards, who ran planned parenthood for a very long time, says this law does? well, it s hard to not view the supreme court, this newly reconfigured 6-3 supreme court as a willing participant in efforts to reverse wade, and what happened in texas is really very interesting, from a legal perspective, if you walk out the emotion of the issue. these statutes had been beaten back repeatedly because any statute that imposed a ban on abortion was perceived by the courts as violating roe and so it would get blocked at this
into focus for us. texas was a case that no one saw coming, and it became important because the supreme court did something really unprecedented. it declined to grant an injunction to block the statute from going into effect while litigation over its constitutionality was ongoing. that s why we now have a ban in texas on abortion. the real question is how widely will that ban spread while this other litigation is ongoing, in effect depriving women of their rights while roe vs. wade is still good law. joyce, i want to read from your new op-ed, the evil genius of the texas anti-abortion law. the risk and uncertainty that the private enforcement mechanism creates is working as intended, depriving texans of abortion rights. this is precisely the quandary that caused the department of justice to enter the fray. the question their lawsuit poses comes down to this. if there is no legal mechanism for the courts to enforce a constitutional right, is it
to take all three together or if it s worth focusing on texas first and tell us what these two lawsuits are likely to yield if they aren t on the substance of the law but simply a mechanism to get the law reviewed. well, that s a lot, nicole, but i ll take up your invitation maybe first to think about all three cases together, because really, this is all about the mississippi case, which is an effort to reverse roe vs. wade outright. and in fact, the missouri statute that was under attack in the eighth circuit today anticipates that approach. that law in missouri has a provision where if roe is reversed in the mississippi case, missouri would actually have a ban from conception onwards on abortion. in other words, a total ban on abortion. there are other states like alabama that have adopted legislation, anticipating a reversal of roe, and then abortion would cease to be available to women under virtually any circumstances in those states. so, that really brings texas