Yup.
" I again wholeheartedly disagree with the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s use of activism to create a right to an abortion in Oklahoma. This court has once more over-involved itself in the state’s democratic process, and has interceded to undo legislation created by the will of the people. I agree with Justice Rowe’s dissent, ‘The issues presented in this matter are political questions, which are better resolved by the people via our democratic process.’"
No clue
I’m assuming there is no way in hell there are 6 liberals on the OK supreme ct, so how many of the six are conservatives who decided to go against the grain.
You made me curious so I went digging, and was surprised to learn 4 justices on SCOOK (
) were appointed by Democratic governors; 3 by Brad Henry who held office from 2003-2011, and one by George Nigh in 1984 (!!). Of the remaining two justices in the majority, one was appointed by Republican Frank Keating in 2000 so he fucked up? The other was nominated by Mary Fallin (R) in 2018, and had voted against previous decisions for abortion rights, but switched sides in this case now that the precedent he opposed dictated he do so, I guess.
What’s really bizarre about the D appointees is that judges in Oklahoma have to stand for retention elections, for six-year terms, so somehow all of those judges have gotten re-elected to their seats at least once:
I imagine this means that the Oklahoma Federalist Society (I assume this exists, idk) has been resting on their laurels and not taken the politicization of the state Supreme Court seriously enough.
Last note - while I haven’t read the opinion to know if this is the case at all, decisions like this (and we’ve seen a lot of them, in places like Kansas and North Dakota as well as this one) can happen because state constitutions often guarantee more expansive rights than what the federal constitution guarantees, so state courts find abortion rights in state provisions instead of where Roe v. Wade did (in the 14th amendment).
Could put FLorida in play.
I still think Florida is a sizable long shot, but an abortion rights ballot initiative during a presidential and senatorial race is absolutely the best way to maximize the odds that one or both of them get there.
Ohio will have abortion on the ballot this (off-year) November:
Ohio had a ban after fetal heartbeat (roughly 6 weeks?) with only lifesaving exceptions that was enacted and immediately blocked in 2019, took effect after Dobbs, and then was blocked again by a court in November while litigation is ongoing, so abortion is kind of mostly legal in Ohio at the moment but on extremely tenuous footing unless this ballot initiative wins.
The divergent stories of two women who are part of a group suing Texas over their abortion ban:
One was pregnant with twins, but one twin had a mostly-fatal chromosomal condition and could threaten the health of her other twin; she had the resources to fly to Colorado to get a half-abortion (the article says the procedure is “selective reduction”) for the affected fetus, and the other twin was born healthy.
The other had her baby diagnosed with anencephaly (underdeveloped brain and skull, fatal after birth) at 13 weeks and did not have the resources from Houston to travel the at least 400 mile distance to any state with legal abortion. She was forced to carry her baby for five more months and give birth; her newborn daughter died in four hours.
The article cites legal arguments the state has filed in the case which are just laughable. Here’s one to file under “things that are challenging to say with a straight face”:
I can’t possibly imagine the trauma it would cause to carry a baby to term for so many months with the knowledge that they will die shortly after.
And the fucking assholes saying the quiet part loud: if she had the resources she could have gone some place else to terminate her pregnancy.
WaPo: An abortion ban made them teen parents. This is life two years later. | non-paywall link
Deep dive on a couple that is DEFINITELY heading to divorce town in the next few years - nothing too awful about their marriage, they’re just very obviously people who wouldn’t still be together (they say as much!) if not for the fact that she got pregnant and Texas banned abortion. And now any future she might have envisioned for herself is dead.
But standing in her kitchen one morning in late May, listening to Billy run the bath for the twins, Brooke also recognized how quickly it could all fall apart. She and Billy fought often — about the messes he left her to clean, the hours he spent playing video games — and she knew they couldn’t manage without his $60,000-a-year military salary. She’d dropped out of real estate school without another career plan in mind.
Working as intended. Women aren’t supposed to have futures.
I just saw this. The party affiliation of judges is not listed on the ballot.
You ever vote for a judge to lose their job?
Pro-life Texas arguing, when it suits them, that fetuses don’t have rights. A white woman famously got her carpool lane violation dismissed by claiming her fetus entitled her to use it, but a Black woman’s pregnancy being valued is clearly a bridge too far for this state:
I can’t read these anymore, it’s too evil and heart breaking
The LOL 5th circuit stuck with their previous ruling that the government’s 2016 expansion of mifepristone was illegal. It doesn’t matter for now because SCOTUS already had a stay in place, but from a quick look there is deranged stuff in these opinions, like psycho James Ho arguing that fucking doctors suffer (legal) injuries when patients’ fetuses they grow fond of are “killed by mifepristone.”
Alabama AG asserts that the state can prosecute women who leave the state to get abortions:
(extending this logic, your average Vegas vacation is a conspiracy to violate Alabama law)
More on conservatives no longer believing in the right to travel within the United States, this story is crazy: WaPo: Texas highways targeted by antiabortion activists seeking to block interstate travel | non-paywall link
For well over an hour, the people of Llano — a town of about 3,400 deep in Texas Hill Country — approached the podium to speak out against abortion. While the procedure was now illegal across Texas, people were still driving women on Llano roads to reach abortion clinics in other states, the residents had been told. They said their city had a responsibility to “fight the murders.”
Whatever shithole county that is in the southeast (a search tells me “Goliad”, population 7,000) is kinda funny, like they’re some backwater dump not on the way to anything but still felt compelled to pass this to stick it to the libs
