South Dakota has just passed an unconsitutional anti-abortion bill, in a deliberate attempt to give the Roberts court a quick opportunity to overturn Roe. An especially odd aspect of this frightening turn of events is the promise by an anonymous donor to give SD $1 million for legal defense.
UPDATE: this post was a bit telegraphic, as indicated by the following correspondence, apparently taking me to task for missing that "[the SD statute] will be enjoined; the 8th Cir will affirm and Ct deny cert". The writer apparently takes me to be "frightened" that Roe would soon be overturned, not my intent -- after all, as the writer correctly indicates, there's no reason to suppose any of Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, or Breyer would vote to overturn Roe (or, for that matter, to even consider hearing the case; from what I've been able to determine, the same may be true of Roberts), so there's little to fear on that front (though we should not ignore the possibility that wishful thinking by the SD right may well have interfered with their ability to count).
Rather, among the obviously frightening facts about the SD law are (a) that the right is now pushing their aims much more aggressively than would have been dared not long ago; (b) that a few not-excessively-unlikely events would now tip the balance the other way on the bench; (c) that enough residents of the once-sensible Upper Midwest are now buying into rightwing beliefs about women that their elected representatives either feel forced into this dreadful position, or are the sort of people who relish being in it; (d) the still greater hardships that, until the law is struck down, are likely to be forced on South Dakotan women and girls wishing to terminate pregnancies, and healthcare workers seeking to help them; (e) the danger that other red state legislatures may be tempted to pursue similar actions, forcing comparable hardships on women and girls residing in them.
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