The Supreme Court will be handing down a potentially groundbreaking ruling this summer in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The justices heard oral arguments December 1 on the constitutionality of Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban and a decision is expected in late June or early July. Needless to say, the case had generated a tidal wave of commentary and speculation.
The prospect of the High Court shifting more of the responsibility of abortion to the states has pro-abortionists at a fever pitch. While there are states where the “right” to abortion will be protected—even expanded—in many cases the Abortion Lobby will turn to their strongest suit to fend off pro-life state legislatures: the Courts.
The Associated Press’s John Kruzel has a story that ran under the headline
“State courts set to be next battleground over abortion.” Some states have already followed a well-trodden path–a pattern where courts suddenly found a heretofore hidden “right” to abortion in the state constitution.
“A number of state supreme courts have already issued such decisions — including in Kansas (2019), Iowa (2018), Montana (1999), Alaska (1997) and Florida (1989) — and experts expect advocates to expand this state-level strategy if Roe is overturned,” according to Kruzel. True, but he doesn’t note that what the state Supreme Court giveth, the state Supreme Court can taketh away.
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That can be done by passing a constitutional an amendment (Kansas) or a turnover in the court (Iowa and Florida).
His list of states where the state’s highest court has already, or may. become involved is not exhaustive but is illustrative.
In an illustration of just how pivotal these state supreme court interpretations have become, Montana’s Republican attorney general in January asked the state Supreme Court to overturn its 23-year-old decision that held that the state constitution’s privacy protections encompass abortion — a ruling some advocates refer to as “Montana’s Roe v. Wade.”
“This decision invented from whole cloth a state constitutional right to elective abortion even though the framers of the Montana Constitution were perfectly clear that decisions about abortion policy are to be firmly in the hands of the Legislature,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R) said in a statement issued in connection with his lawsuit.
Last week, Michigan’s pro-abortion Governor Whitmer announced that she is using her executive authority to file a lawsuit asking the Michigan Supreme Court to find a right to abortion within the constitution.
“This is a frivolous lawsuit that should be immediately dismissed by the Michigan Supreme Court,” said Right to Life of Michigan President Barbara Listing. “Governor Whitmer is ignoring the voices of Michiganders by bypassing all lower courts and court precedent just as the U.S. Supreme Court did when they decided on Roe v. Wade.
Idaho, “is also weighing a similar request from Planned Parenthood in a legal challenge to the state’s six-week abortion ban,” Kruzel reported. (The law was recently blocked from taking effect while the case proceeds.)
“Among the arguments that Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit makes is a request for the Idaho Supreme Court to find that the state’s constitution contains a fundamental right to privacy in making intimate familial decisions that encompasses abortion.” Kruzel added.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in at National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.
