I believe this is without precedent, for a draft opinion to release before publication, and until publication it is not the official opinion of the court. However, that being said, reliable journalism is circulating the draft copy of Alito’s opinion (link below to the Politico article that broke it), Alito’s opinion holds that Roe and Casey were bad law all along, and decided under “incredibly weak” justification.
Democrats need to run on abortion rights in all 50 states and make it THE issue of this election - vote for us and we’ll shore up protections for abortion under state law. The overwhelming majority of Americans are pro-choice and this is a winning platform.
This, IMO, is going to hasten the downward spiral of the “red states”. There is going to be a flood of movement of people and corporations out of regressive areas, and into those states that respect rights of women.
States like Mississippi and Alabama etc. are going to go even further into the toilet.
Alito’s draft opinion already alludes to that @Snarky_Kong , in his phrasing, an unenumerated right (like abortion) can only be protected by the courts where they have a strong basis in the history and traditions of the country. He specifically mentions both Lawrence v Texas (sodomy) and Obergefell v. Hodges as being likewise poorly decided. The only thing that would perhaps save those rulings would be one of the five who agreed to overturn Roe with him balking on those, which I would not count on.
The ruling does not make abortion illegal, it leaves it up to the States. Whatever exceptions are written into State laws would still apply. I’ll note there has been a movement away from all of those exceptions in recent years, red states have been passing laws that eliminate the rape and incest exception, as well as watering down the health of the mother exception by requiring convoluted hoops being jumped through to justify the medical exception being granted.
Rachel Maddow referred to some kind of “trigger” laws in some states, where apparently if Roe is overturned, those states automatically ban all abortions, can someone please explain?
But considering the things the states have been doing, as you pointed out, this is a distinction without a difference. Everyone (including the Justices who support this ruling) know exactly what’s going to happen to abortion in the Red States. Pretending otherwise serves no useful purpose.
What do you want to have explained? You seem to have stated what the “trigger” laws will do very succinctly. Roe is overturned, trigger laws immediately go into effect and abortions will instantly be banned in all states where such laws have passed.
Uh, I had assumed your original statement was semi-joking, if it was serious: no they could not. The 13th Amendment is black letter part of the constitution, to literally rule it is bad law would simply not be constitutionally valid exercise of judicial review. It would be like Trump crowning himself King after his 2nd term ends instead of retiring. It’s in the category of “illegal and unconstitutional things that could happen”, and that then means we no longer have a functioning government and we are then in a constitutional crisis in which likely things beyond the arguments of law will determine the matter.
Nevertheless, slavery as a practical matter existed well into the 20th century, through the black codes, penal codes that forced black people into unpaid labor as a punishment for bullahit crimes, like walking along the railroad. Or conducting commerce after sunset. This was even before chain gangs.