Slate panics about Roe v. Wade as SCOTUS agrees to hear abortion case
May 19, 2021
Slate is panicking about the state of Roe v. Wade in a recent story.
The outlet shows its true colors with loaded language misrepresenting the Supreme Court’s conservative justices. They’re described as an “ultra-conservative five-justice majority.”
The article frets about supposedly “draconian abortion bans.” It instills fear in its audience, saying the Supreme Court “appears poised to seize upon [a Mississippi abortion ban case] to eviscerate the constitutional right to abortion.”
The Court is set to hear a case of a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The law made exceptions for medical emergencies or pregnancies with a “severe fetal abnormality.” It made no exceptions for cases of incest or rape.
The author calls pro-life laws “extreme,” thus portraying pro-lifers as extremists without any self-awareness of the Left’s extremism.
The state of New York legalized abortion up until birth in many cases on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade in 2019. Governor Andrew Cuomo had the One World Trade Center and other landmarks lit in pink to celebrate the law’s passage.
The author is clearly on their side. He shows his cards more openly by advocating that it would have been “for the good of the court” for Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh “to stay out of the abortion debate.” In other words, the author says that pro-abortion legislation is good for the court; pro-life legislation isn’t.
He calls the pro-life literature that doctors read to patients “anti-abortion propaganda.” While that and other parts of the article are false, his conclusion may not be.
“The constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy may now be under more severe and imminent threat than it has been at any time since Roe came down in 1973,” he concludes.
As it hears Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court said it would decide whether “all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.”
Roe v. Wade legalizes abortion before fetal viability. A fetus is considered viable — that is, able to survive outside the uterus — at around 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Former President Donald Trump tweeted in 2019 that he is “strongly Pro-Life, with the three exceptions — Rape, Incest and protecting the Life of the mother — the same position taken by Ronald Reagan.”
Trump appointed Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh. Gorsuch has not always been reliably conservative. Nor has Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee.