What Will Happen When Roe v. Wade Is Overturned?

[Valin]

National Review:

It may take years for the states to sort out their abortion laws.

Clarke Forsythe

November 23, 2016

 

President-elect Trump’s reconfirmation recently on 60 Minutes that he will nominate “pro-life judges” has sparked some unprecedented media focus on what will happen when Roe v. Wade is overturned. This focus is long overdue.

 

The notion of Supreme Court justices acting as public-health officials ranking the priority of abortion as health care, deciding what standards should apply to the practice in clinics from coast to coast, and deciding what credentials are suitable for abortionists would have astounded the great justices of the past. That’s why it has to be dressed up as some solemn “constitutional right” that obscures the Court’s actual role as the de facto National Abortion Control Board.

 

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor recognized what the justices were doing back in 1983, warning of “our continued functioning as the nation’s ‘ex officio medical board with powers to approve or disapprove medical and operative practices and standards throughout the United States.’”

 

But no one should jump the gun. There are three huge political hurdles to the Supreme Court’s doing the right thing and returning the abortion issue to the democratic process in the States.

 

(Snip)