There Oughta Be a Law -- Oh, Wait, There Is

As Republican states are falling over themselves to see who can ban abortions in their states faster and more substantively than the others, Kentucky appears to have taken the lead yesterday, with a law that has the effect of essentially making all abortion for any reason illegal.  In fairness, though, Oklahoma can make a good case for itself by passing a law last Tuesday where doctors who perform abortions face up to 10 years in jail and $100,000 in fines.  Florida is almost a piker signing into law yesterday (too) its own 15-week abortion ban, contrary to federal law, knocking over two months off its previous state law -- but at least they include exceptions, which seemingly slipped through the cracks.

By the way, before getting to more detailed issues, it’s worth a slight pause to note that the Kentucky laws are so draconian and impossible to adhere to that the two abortion clinics in the state were forced to shut down.  When I heard that story was, as I’m sure it was to many, one of heartbreak of the clinics closing, shutting out the opportunity for those in need of their services.  But my second reaction was being stunned to hear that, previous to this law passing, in the entire state of Kentucky, with a population of 4.5 million, there were only two clinics.

Back to the point at hand.  There is clearly massive debate in the country over abortions.  Not that the debate is even on the question of whether abortions should be allowed.  That question is resolved.  A Quinnipiac poll shows that Americans support Roe v. Wade by 63%.  A Washington Post/ABC poll and Gallup poll show similar results.  But the debate is still strong and loud and often angry.  There’s only one issue in the whole abortion situation that is not a matter of debate – and that is that abortion is legal in the United States by federal law.

Now, that doesn’t mean people can’t think the law is wrong and should be repealed.  It only means that whatever you feel, no matter how outraged and religiously justified according to your personal faith, abortion is legal.

That’s why the most draconian of these state laws bewilder me.  Because if something is legal, how can it be legal for a state to pass laws that serve to prohibit American citizens for the right to do something that is legal?

To be clear, I’m not naïve here.  I know this is a matter of law.  And that the laws will be challenged and get to the Supreme Court.  And the Court will decide whether these Republican state laws are constitutional or not.  And that with the current makeup of the Supreme Court, upholding the existing law is in serious question.

None of that overrides my question, though.  A question which befuddles me because I’m not a lawyer.  I still can’t fully grasp how the Supreme Court (no matter how much the majority might hate some issue) can decide, as a matter of law, that a law can prohibit someone from exercising their right to do something that is legal?

Again, to be clear, I’m not naïve here.  I know that the Supreme Court can decide that Roe v. Wade itself was decided by faulty reasoning and overturn the law itself.  Never mind that nothing has actually changed in the science or society (other than more people support abortion today than before) to seemingly justify overturning the law.  But I understand that it can happen.  But that’s a separate matter from upholding a state law that prohibits an American citizen of their legal right under federal law.

And yes, I’m sure that there is a legal answer that would justify this.  I still have a hard time understanding that.  Other than enough justices twisting and turning and jamming legal justifications into a tiny nook where it doesn’t properly fit, but you’ll cram it down in there anyway and then say, “Tah-dah!!”

Who knows?  Maybe none of these Republican state laws that prohibit a person’s legal right will be upheld.  I’m not expecting that, but it’s possible, especially those laws (like in Kentucky) that are the most encompassing and block a citizen’s right entirely.  But how a state could pass such laws in the first place is beyond my sense of logic.

Again, I’m not naïve here.  I know that logic and legal are not at play here.  Only religious zealotry, trying to impose one’s personal, religious beliefs on a secular legal system.  That, and playing for votes from your political base – which at its foundation is religious.

Hey, there are laws I hate.  And I hope they get overturned.  But until they get overturned, I accept that they’re the law.

That said, I hold by an article I wrote on the Huffington Post years ago.  I said that if this is the game Republicans want to play with abortion, and those are the rules we’re playing by – then Blue states should pass laws that create such difficult conditions under which one can sell bullets.  Guns would still be legal.  Bullets would be legal.  But you can’t sell a bullet unless it was in a store that had one bathroom for every employee, any store selling bullets needed at least four employees on staff at all times including one with a medical degree,  only one bullet could be sold a day to any customer and only two in a given week, a customer needed to provide a birth certificate and proof of bullet insurance, there must be a 30-day waiting period before a bullet could be picked up with a 60-day waiting period for a second bullet bought during the same week and 90-days for the third, and no store selling bullets could be withing 10 miles of a school.

Hey, it’s anti-abortionists’ rules.  Blame them.

We’ll find out what the Supreme Court does with these Republican anti-abortion state laws and with Roe v. Wade itself. 

Regardless of how the High Court decides, I do hope there is an unintended consequence to this all.  And that’s that enough voters in these Red states passing anti-abortion laws – women especially, whatever their political beliefs – are so outraged by the laws abusing their legal rights and lives that when the next election comes around, they vote against every representative who voted for them.