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Seems it was a good idea to get alarmed by the storm signals from an earlier hearing held by federal district judge James Teilborg on a suit to strike down Arizona’s new and extreme “fetal pain” ban on abortions prior to 20 weeks after a pregnant’s woman’s first missed menstrual period. Today Teilborg upheld the law despite its reasonably direct challenge to an array of Supreme Court precedents against previability abortion restrictions. Salon’s Irin Carmon has the essential rundown:
The Clinton-appointed district court judge in Arizona just did something, well, unprecedented. He upheld Arizona’s ban on abortions after 20 weeks, claiming it didn’t actually “ban” abortions before viability, it just “regulates” them down to the most grueling emergencies.
Worse, Teilborg even regurgitated the suspect science of “fetal pain,” a first in the federal courts, though his decision was based on the contorted “regulation” versus “ban” finding. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the state can only ban abortions after viability, regardless of the rationale, but Teilborg found that Arizona’s H.B. 2036 “does not impose a substantial obstacle to previability abortions,” because a woman can still get an abortion after 20 weeks if she’s about to die or suffer major physical impairment.
“It’s such a game of semantics, to the point of Alice in Wonderland,” ACLU staff attorney Alexa Kolbi-Molinas told Salon. “When the Supreme Court said you cannot ban any abortions prior to viability, regardless of whether there are any exceptions to that ban, that’s exactly what they meant.”
The ruling will be immediately appealed 9th Circuit Court of Appeal, allegedly a bastion of liberalism. But even if Teilborg’s effort to significantly change constitutonal law is overruled, he’s drawn up a template for a higher or future Court to pay lip service to the precedents while vitiating the right to choose in a fundamental way.
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c u n d gulag on July 30, 2012 6:02 PM:
Just another step forwards for the Dominionist Christian, corporation money-saving, "Woman's Arbeit Macht Frie!" movement.
'We guarantee the right of any and every child to be born!
After that, the little f*cker's on his or her own!!!'
c u n d gulag on July 30, 2012 6:06 PM:
OY!
"Macht frei," not 'macht frie.'
Y dew wee haz 2 hav CRAPTCHA, wen wee kent wee haz "Edit?"
Quicksand on July 30, 2012 6:19 PM:
Let's apply this reasoning to Second Amendment jurisprudence, mmkay?
We're not banning guns, we're just regulating them! Police and the Army can still have them!
MelanieN on July 30, 2012 6:21 PM:
Typo alert: You said it's a ban on abortions prior to 20 weeks. It's actually a ban on abortions AFTER 20 weeks.
lib4 on July 30, 2012 6:44 PM:
Waiting for the death threats against this "traitor" Liberal judge....
ohh wait liberals dont react like savages when a decision doesn't go their way
bluestatedon on July 30, 2012 7:52 PM:
"ohh wait liberals dont react like savages when a decision doesn't go their way..."
But meanie liberal bloggers will say mean and unkind things about him, which is the same thing as death threats and bombs.
DAY on July 30, 2012 8:05 PM:
Next on the docket:
"Every Sperm is Sacred" bill.
schtick on July 30, 2012 9:29 PM:
The tealiban would all be sure to have abortions for their wives, daughters and mistress. Contraceptions would be available to them also. It's just everyone else that won't have those opportunities. Do as I say, not as I do.
James E. Powell on July 31, 2012 12:59 AM:
This stuff will not stop unless and until people, and I mean women mostly, start voting for candidates who will protect the right to choose.
So long as the right-wing can control the appointment of federal judges, and they seem to be able to do that whether they are in the majority or not, the federal bench will continue to be packed with anti-abortion zealots. And eventually, they will so completely vitiate Roe v. Wade, that it won't be necessary to overrule it.
But I guess it was more important to keep Joe Lieberman in the senate because . . . well I never heard the reason.
Gov't Mule on July 31, 2012 8:56 AM:
IF only women who are "about to die or suffer major physical impairment" can obtain an abortion under the new law, it means every other woman who does not meet the above criteria CANNOT get an abortion. Is this any different than creating some ridiculous guidelines doctors in Mississippi must meet in order for them to legally perform abortions in that state, which I might add was struck down in federal court?
grandpa john on July 31, 2012 11:26 AM:
At age 75 I fear that I will not live long enough to see the idiots who run the democratic party to finally realize that governing all the people begins at the state and local level and that Dean's 50 state concept is the only way we can ever have a truly democratic government that represents all the people. How long will they continue to ignore the old addage, "{all politics are local"To consistently win national non presidential elections you have to control the state governments, since these are the people who control re-districting, who set the voting laws and who make the voter infringement laws,
Every state in this election where we are concerned with robbing citizens of there write to vote, where there are laws being passed to deprive women and minorities of their rights,where there is gerrymandering to gain seats for the wing nuts, are states where the insane wingnut republicans have gained control of the government.
Now until the Democratic leadership can gather the humility to admit that Dean was right and start a major effort to regain control of state governments, we are fucked.
G.Kerby on July 31, 2012 11:41 AM:
Amen grandpa john.