The Supreme Court’s SB 8 hearing is a fight for nationwide abortion access

BY ALISON REGAN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
10/26/21

The United States Supreme Court has accepted a request from abortion-rights advocates and providers to expeditiously consider their challenge to Texas state law, known as Senate Bill 8 (SB 8), which is one of the most destructive state bans ever enacted by circumventing Roe v. Wade and essentially blocking access to abortion care in the state. Oral arguments will begin on Nov. 1.

SB 8 has revealed for the country what many of us have known for decades: Reproductive rights are not the same as reproductive justice. Abortion rights without access are rights in name only.

Continued: https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/578475-the-supreme-courts-sb-8-hearing-is-a-fight-for-nationwide-abortion-access

USA – ‘Personhood’ Film Shows the Cost of the Push for Fetal Rights

‘Personhood’ Film Shows the Cost of the Push for Fetal Rights
“If [the personhood movement] succeeds, the people who get pregnant are going to lose their fundamental rights… to privacy, to equality, to due process of law.”

Nov 7, 2019
Elizabeth Dawes Gay

Premiering this week, Personhood is the latest film highlighting the state of reproductive rights in the United States and how efforts to undermine the constitutional right to abortion cause unnecessary harm. In addition to exposing how fetal “personhood”—or the anti-abortion idea of legal protection for fetuses—immediately threatens the lives and well-being of pregnant people, the documentary film covers important issues concerning what the future could hold if state and federal policy continues in this trajectory. Personhood serves as a reminder that more organizing and political activism are needed to meet the challenges ahead.

Continued: https://rewire.news/article/2019/11/07/personhood-cost-push-fetal-rights/

The Invisible Hand of Justice Stevens on Abortion

The Invisible Hand of Justice Stevens on Abortion
He was a leading if often unseen strategist who helped protect a woman’s right to choose.

By Linda Greenhouse
July 20, 2019

During the days following the death last Tuesday of Justice John Paul Stevens, admirers posted lists of their favorite and not-so-favorite Stevens opinions. Free speech on the internet? A great one. No First Amendment protection for burning an American flag? Not so great. Access to federal court for Guantánamo detainees? Definitely. Upholding an Indiana voter ID requirement? Hmm …

Items on these lists, posted on blogs and websites, ranged widely. Missing, however, were opinions dealing with abortion. That’s surprising, since Justice Stevens wrote opinions in many of the abortion cases that came before the court during his 35-year tenure.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/20/opinion/sunday/justice-stevens-abortion.html

USA – A Supreme Court Reporter Defines the Threat to Abortion Rights

A Supreme Court Reporter Defines the Threat to Abortion Rights

By Isaac Chotiner
May 14, 2019

The past two weeks have been some of the worst on record for abortion rights in the U.S. Last week, the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, signed a bill that outlaws abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. Now Alabama is planning to go a step further, with the country’s most extreme anti-abortion law. Under the proposed legislation, abortion would be criminalized, with no exceptions for cases of rape or incest; doctors could face a ninety-nine-year prison sentence for terminating a pregnancy. The Alabama House has passed the bill, and the Senate is expected to vote on the measure on Tuesday evening.

Both the Georgia and Alabama laws are sure to be challenged in court, but the legal climate surrounding abortion is different than it was just last year. After the replacement of the Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy with Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Chief Justice John Roberts is the swing vote, and many conservatives have reason to hope that the Court will rule in favor of new restrictions on abortion and eventually even overturn Roe v. Wade.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/a-supreme-court-reporter-defines-the-threat-to-abortion-rights