Liberals have expressed fear and loathing after the Supreme Court decided to reconsider the broad right to an abortion it established almost 50 years ago.
The case: In a one-line order on Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear oral arguments for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which challenges the constitutionality of a Mississippi state law that mostly bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
- The court said it will rule next term on the long-standing question of whether all pre-viability bans on elective abortions are unconstitutional.
The reaction: Both pro- and anti-abortion groups took the Supreme Court’s announcement as a sign the new 6-3 conservative majority plans to at least partially overturn precedents established by Roe v. Wade in 1973 and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.
- “States should be allowed to craft laws that are in line with both public opinion on this issue as well as basic human compassion, instead of the extreme policy that Roe imposed,” said Jeanne Mancini, the president of March for Life.
- “Alarm bells are ringing loudly,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only clinic in Mississippi still performing abortions. “The consequences of a Roe reversal would be devastating.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the “swing vote” on the Supreme Court, was the focus of much of the left’s anxiety in the media and on Twitter.
Feminists, like Democratic National Committee official Lindy Li, doubled-down on sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh which he emotionally denied during his 2018 confirmation hearing.
Other commentators recalled remarks Kavanaugh made during the polarizing hearings that some critics interpreted as threats of revenge against the left.
Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL, was among the abortion-rights activists’ who claimed their dire warnings about Kavanaugh had borne out — even though his rulings have repeatedly disappointed conservatives.
Other Twitter activists re-upped their demands that Democrats “pack” the Supreme Court with liberal justices, a proposal being explored by President Joe Biden’s commission.
The bottom line: “Is Brett Kavanaugh Out for Revenge?” asks the headline of a profile of Kavanaugh published last week by The Atlantic.
- In the 6,000 word article, Atlantic staff writer McKay Coppins examines whether Kavanaugh is likely to act out “the partisan revenge fantasy feared by the left and craved by the right” and concludes: Maybe.
- “If Kavanaugh is ‘dangerous,’ as his critics contend, it’s not because he is part of some brazen right-wing conspiracy,” he writes. “It’s because he has managed to ascend to the height of American power while remaining, perhaps even to himself, a living Rorschach test.”
