Recently, the anti-choice movement has shown itself to be divided over whether or not Justice Anthony Kennedy, commonly thought of as the new "swing vote" on the Supreme Court, is ready to overturn Roe v. Wade. But this same division on Kennedy's position is reflected in the pro-choice community. Some say it's only a matter of time before Roe is officially lost; others say that Roe may continue to stand as precedent, even if the current court is amenable to restricting the right to abortion in various ways.
Ann Bartow, professor of law at the University of South Carolina and administrator of the Feminist Law Professors, recently wrote that the Supreme Court already has the majority it needs to overturn Roe and might just be waiting for President Bush to leave office to do so. "Kennedy at one time was tepidly pro-choice, but he has been moving against abortion over time. Most ominously, Kennedy authored the Carhart majority opinion, which held that the Partial Birth Abortion Act did not impermissibly burden a woman's right to abortion," Bartow wrote on the blog. "When Alito joined the Court, the gun was cocked. It doesn't matter who replaces Justice Stevens, should he retire. The five votes are already there."
Bartow is referring to the second Carhart case, Gonzales v. Carhart, which challenged the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act passed in 2003 (the first Carhart case, Stenberg v. Carhart, challenged a similar statute passed in Nebraska). In Carhart II, Kennedy unveiled worrisome language that signaled a significant departure from the standards the Court has used in the past to protect the right to abortion, Bartow says. Kennedy's opinion noted that "it seems unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained" –- heavy-handed, scientifically unsubstantiated language that lines up better with the current anti-choice "abortion hurts women" rhetoric than the language in the decision that upheld Roe in 1992, although allowing it to be subject to various restrictions.
Bartow's theory, then, is that the Supreme Court is simply waiting for Bush to leave office to overturn Roe and throw a wrench into the plans of a new administration, one that looks likely to be Democratic. "They have the votes to take a case now, [what] they're waiting for is a Democratic president and Congress," Bartow told me over the phone. "It would really stall any work they want to do." The Court did just decline to hear three abortion-related cases this session, but has time to accept a direct challenge to Roe later in its term – which either the South Dakota abortion ban or the Colorado personhood amendment, both on the ballot this November, could supply later this year.
Bartow's argument sparked a heated debate in the pro-choice blogosphere. Scott Lemieux, an assistant professor of political science at Hunter College in New York and contributor to the blog Lawyers, Guns and Money, disagrees with Bartow that the Court is "that crudely political," even though he acknowledges that "to some degree, the Supreme Court follows the election returns and it's not a completely apolitical body." Lemieux says that the Court elected to hear Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992 just before another high-stakes presidential election. The ruling on Casey upheld the right to an abortion, but established that regulations and restrictions could be placed on that right, as long as it didn't place an "undue burden" on the woman. Kathryn Kolbert, the ACLU attorney who argued the case, specifically tailored her argument to force the justices to address the central holdings of Roe before the 1992 presidential election.
Lemieux also doesn't believe that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, the two most recently confirmed justices nominated under Bush and considered very conservative justices, are eager to overturn Roe. "I think it's very unlikely that Roberts and Alito would be particularly interested in a 5-4 opinion explicitly saying that Roe v. Wade is overruled. My guess is that Scalia and Thomas are the only justices interested in doing that," Lemieux said. He thinks that the two justices would rather hollow out Roe, placing more and more restrictions on the right to abortion, rather than outright overturning it.
What Roe Fails to Protect
Casey opened the door to regulations like waiting periods, parental notification laws, and very specific regulations on abortion facilities. Lemieux points out that "the only regulation [the Court] struck down, the spousal notification requirement, is the only one that would've affected a woman like [Sandra Day] O'Connor. The regulations they upheld were all ones that would be no big deal if you were an affluent woman living in a city, but if you're not then it's a big deal."
Lemieux is suggesting that many low-income women and women living in rural areas are essentially living in a world in which abortion is so difficult and expensive to obtain that it might as well be illegal. Thanks to the 1976 Hyde Amendment, the federal government is forbidden from using Title X funds for abortion services. A 2005 documentary produced by PBS's Frontline revealed that there is just one abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi. "What you are seeing is that poor marginalized women do not have access [to abortion]," said Gaylon Alcaraz, Executive Director of the Chicago Abortion Fund, a group that is part of a national network that grants money to women for the medical costs associated with having an abortion.
To Alcaraz, the debate over whether Roe v. Wade will be overturned is irrelevant as long as the Hyde Amendment remains in place. "I think there is definitely a big disconnect," Alcaraz said about the academic debate over Roe v. Wade and the reality on the ground. Alcaraz notes that the grassroots side needs to be just as important as the legal side; the Supreme Court isn't ensuring access to abortion for many women, she says, even with Roe in place.
Related Posts
- Kay Steiger, Next Stop, Supreme Court: What Happens if Anti-Choice Ballot Initiatives in South Dakota and Colorado Pass?
- Amanda Marcotte, The Stealth Attack on Privacy
