Walker, GOP's Anti-Choice Law Ruled Unconstitutional

Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican Party legislators fooled many Wisconsin citizens with their 2013 Act 37 to stop a woman's choice to an abortion, but the federal judges in the Seventh Circuit ridiculed the anti-abortion intent and effect of the law from its inception, and ruled it unconstitutional.

Yesterday, a three-judge panel upheld U.S. District Judge's William Conley's 2013 opinion concluding the GOP-imposed law is "motivated by an improper purpose, namely to restrict the availability of abortion services in Wisconsin," (Bice, Spivak, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel).

The case is Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin et al v. Attorney General Brad Schimel (N0 15-1736). Orals were heard October 1, 2015.

Schimel is a Republican who performs political work in the legal arena for the Scott Walker administration.

Writes Judge Richard Posner for the three-judge panel (with rightwing Judge Daniel Manion dissenting):

There are those who would criminalize all abortions, thus terminating the constitutional right asserted in Roe and Casey and a multitude of other decisions. And there are those who would criminalize all abortions except ones that terminate a pregnancy caused by rape or are necessary to protect the life or (in some versions) the health of the pregnant woman. But what makes no sense is to abridge the constitutional right to an abortion on the basis of spurious contentions regarding women’s health—and the abridgment challenged in this case would actually endanger women’s health. It would do that by reducing the number of abortion doctors in Wisconsin, thereby increasing the waiting time for obtaining an abortion, and that increase would in turn compel some women to defer abortion to the second trimester of their pregnancy—which the studies we cited earlier find to be riskier than a first-trimester abortion. For abortions performed in the first trimester the rate of major complications is 0.05-0.06 percent (that is, between five one-hundredths of 1 percent and six one-hundredths of 1 percent. It is 1.3 percent for second-trimester abortions between 22 and 26 times higher. [p.23]

Notes Posner on Republican end-around and disingenuous legislative initiatives to halt the Constitutionally protected women's' choice to choose to have an abortion:

A great many Americans, including a number of judges, legislators, governors, and civil servants, are passionately opposed to abortion—as they are entitled to be. But persons who have a sophisticated understanding of the law and of the Supreme Court know that convincing the Court to overrule Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey is a steep uphill fight, and so some of them proceed indirectly, seeking to discourage abortions by making it more difficult for women to obtain them. They may do this in the name of protecting the health of women who have abortions, yet as in this case the specific measures they support may do little or nothing for health, but rather strew impediments to abortion. [pp 24.25]

Concluded Posner: "[I]t is apparent that the defendants have failed to make a dent in the district court's opinion granting the permanent injunction sought by the plaintiffs." [pp 28, 29]

Roe, (upheld in Planned Parenthood of Se. Penn. v. Casey (1992)), is a landmark case acknowledging the personal, "fundamental" right to liberty and privacy (against state action) individual women retain in the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments.

Justice Ginsberg Way-off on Roe v. Wade

Update: Erwin Chemerinsky writes "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg should retire from the Supreme Court after the completion of the current term in June. She turned 81 on Saturday and by all accounts she is healthy and physically and mentally able to continue. But only by resigning this summer can she ensure that a Democratic president will be able to choose a successor who shares her views and values." (LA Times)

Diane P. Wood, Margaret Raymond, and so many brilliant, young jurists are ready that Ginsberg's obviously outstanding tenure aside, not stepping down is selfish in the face of American misogyny and the brand of authoritarianism that is arising now from underground into the judiciary.
---Time for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg to get off the Court

What ahistorical spasms have taken ahold of Justice Ginsberg?

"Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1993-present) told an audience at the University of Chicago Law School on Saturday night that a lack of 'judicial restraint' in the court’s ruling on Roe v. Wade gave abortion opponents a 'clear target' that continues to fuel anti-choice activism 40 years later," notes Katie McDonough this morning in Salon.

A clear target?

Women have been the clear target of the Catholic Church hierarchy and free roaming misogyny since the inception of the United States of America.

Roe stopped the enforcement of anti-choice state laws outlawing abortion.

Salon's McDonough also references similar comments that Ginsberg made in April:

As noted by the New York Times editorial board and Yale Law School professors Linda Greenhouse and Reva Siegel, Ginsburg’s previously-asserted idea that the court got 'ahead of public opinion' on abortion and 'short-circuited' an evolving political process at the state level is deeply problematic.

If one follows Ginsberg's logic, the Court should never protect the constitutional rights of minorities in the face of majority opinion because that would make political targets of minorities by assorted majority bigots and oppressive, tyrannical law of which America has a long, shameful tradition.

Ginsberg goes on pursuing several lines of thought, all of which do not demonstrate a clear hold of any conception of the civil rights of Americans, and certainly not specifically the constitutional imperative to protect free choice, an issue that props up the GOP and Tea Party as major political forces.

Ginsberg's public forays into political strategy are ill-conceived and foolish for a sitting justice of the Court, and her constitutional jurisprudence is suspect.

Ginsberg is 80-year-old.

And she is no William O. Douglas or Robert Jackson. Ginsberg should resign at the end of term in June.

The stakes are way too high with this reckless, statist Roberts-Scalia court and the forces of authoritarianism that hold sway in the majority of states.