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Texas Abortion Law, and High Court Ruling On It, Remind Us That Elections Matter

Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

Now a 5-4 majority of the high court has used it to allow the Texas abortion law to take effect instead of the more customary move in such controversial cases of blocking its enforcement while appeals go forward.

Yes, if you’re keeping score, even Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s three liberal members in opposition, writing in his dissenting opinion that he would have blocked this law because of its serious consequences. But his vote was not enough to tilt the balance away from his fellow conservatives who dominate the court 6-3, thanks to the three justices appointed by then-President Donald Trump.

As if my liberal friends and neighbors needed any reminders, elections matter. We see in the current court’s makeup a triumph of concerted efforts in recent decades by culture-war conservatives, campaigning from the local school boards up to state legislatures and Congress, to elect officeholders who will undo such landmark liberal reforms as the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

That decision stands out in my memory as one of the court’s most consequential decisions since its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision to desegregate schools. I’ve been dismayed in more recent decades by how much the decision has become a potential victim of its own success.

Young women who have fought for the right to choose increasingly have taken it for granted, polls show, but the latest wave of bills, conservative legislatures and conservative judges have put this year on track to become the “most devastating antiabortion state legislative session in decades.” That’s according to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights organization whose research is quoted by both sides.

Whichever side wins in these nationwide battles, one sad fact persists: The poor tend to be penalized the most. Women of means can find alternatives more easily, depending on their resources.

 

The good news in recent decades has been a decline in abortions as birth control has become more available. The goal, as Bill Clinton said in his campaign for the presidency, is to make abortion “safe, legal and rare.” It was an inspired slogan to bridge a broad range of political views. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long enough.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)

©2021 Clarence Page. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.


(c) 2021 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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